springer us sep 2000 (69 Ergebnisse)

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Two years ago, the Guido Carli Association, in collaboration with the Aspen Institute Italia, charged a group of distinguished economists to examine the problems created by the unsatisfactory functioning of the International Monetary System. The two resulting conferences were sponsored by the Fondazione della Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze (CESIFIN) and the Permanent Advisory Committee on the Euro and the Dollar (PACE&D). Their research had a two-fold aim. The first was an examination of the basic function of the International Monetary System with a special focus on the role the Euro would and should have. The second was the preparation of a list of recommendations on how to resolve the problems, financial problems in particular, affecting the entire world community. Last year, the group focused on efforts taking place in diverse financial institutions and universities to construct what has been called the `New International Financial Architecture'. This group considered the legal problems arising from European and international integration and, more generally, from the new architecture of the International Monetary System. This book, The New Architecture of the International Monetary System, is the final result of their efforts. It will be an invaluable resource for academics, professionals, and students alike.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - `Morphological imaging' and `functional imaging' are current mainstays for the diagnosis, successful treatment and accurate follow-up of patients with endocrine disorders. Functional and Morphological Imaging of the Endocrine System provides the reader with comprehensive but concise insights in the application of cutting edge imaging techniques and updated imaging protocols for the diagnosis and treatment of hypersecretory hormonal syndromes and functional endocrine masses.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - With this important work, written around current behavioral psychology research and practice as it applies to school-age children, the authors address both experimental and applied issues in the assessments and interventions used with this population. Among the issues examined are the legal, bureaucratic, and psychological complications involving the newly mandated Functional Assessment law. Included with this book is a software package designed specifically to provide tools to conduct and calculate outcomes for functional assessment procedures on notebook computers.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - There are numerous factors contributing to the dynamic growth of wireless communication systems we've been observing in the past 10 years, the most important being the increasing network user mobility and the technological advances in high-speed data transmission over radio channels. Research centres and standards-making institutions the world over conduct works on 3G integrated systems of person-to-person and person-to-computer communications, wireless counterparts of classical LAN, ATM and IP architectures, satellite and access networks as well as advanced service platforms like W AP and other concepts. Among the many commercial and non-profit organisations professionally involved in the development of the new information infrastructure, of particular influence is the International Federation for Information Processing. Within its Technical Committee TC-6, a working group WG 6.8 has been set up to co-ordinate IFIP activities in the area of wireless communications. It has done so, among others, by arranging regular meetings of academic and industrial researchers, known as IFIP TC-6 WG 6.8 Workshops on Personal Wireless Communications (pWC). Such workshops were held in recent years in Prague, Frankfurt/M, Tokyo and Copenhagen, and their success has resulted in the promotion of PWC to the status of IFIP Working Conference.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Optical Fiber Sensor Technology, Advanced Applications - Bragg Gratings and Distributed Sensors, builds upon the foundations of the subject in the preceding four volumes of this series, concentrating as they do upon both applications and the technology of advanced optical fiber sensors. Previous volumes have covered the fundamentals of the field, devices and systems and chemical and environmental monitoring. This volume deals with a range of highly topical sensor devices and commercial systems, with considerable emphasis upon one of the most important areas, Bragg gratings in fibers, their fabrication and applications in advanced sensor systems and the principles and use of distributed fiber optic sensors. The volume is well illustrated and referenced, pointing to hundreds of key publications accessible in the open literature. It draws upon a group of authors with an international reputation for their work in the area, carefully edited into a coherent and logical text by the editors, based on their considerable experience in the field. This book series will provide an invaluable source for researchers, engineers and advanced students in the field of optical fibers, optoelectronics and measurement and sensing.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Whenever the heart is challenged with an increased work load for a prolonged period, it responds by increasing its muscle mass--a phenomenon known as cardiac hypertrophy. Although cardiac hypertrophy is commonly seen under physiological conditions such as development and exercise, a wide variety of pathological situa tions such as hypertension (pressure overload), valvular defects (volume overload), myocardial infarction (muscle loss), and cardiomyopathy (muscle disease) are also known to result in cardiac hypertrophy. Various hormones such as catecholamines, thyroid hormones, angiotensin II, endothelin, and growth factors have also been shown to induce cardiac hypertrophy. Although the exact mechanisms underlying or pathological forrns of cardiac hypertrophy are poorly under the physiological stood, an increase in the intraventricular pressure is believed to represent the major stimulus for the development of cardiac hypertrophy. In this regard, stretching of the cardiac muscle has been shown to induce the hypertrophic response, but the role of metabolic influences in this process cannot be ruled out. Furthermore, different hormones and other interventions in the absence of stretch have been observed to stimulate protein synthesis in both isolated cardiomyocyte and vascular myocyte preparations. Nonetheless, it is becoming dear that receptor as well as phospholipid linked signal transduction pathways are activated in some specific manner depend ing upon the initial hypertrophic stimulus, and these then result in an increase in the size and mass of cardiomyocytes.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - The international symposia on blood transfusion in Groningen have taken place without interruption since 1976. Each year Dr. Smit-Sibinga and his team have not only organized a meeting on timely topics in blood transfusion, but also succeeded in attracting prominent chairmen and speakers. The subject of the 24th Symposium was Molecular Biology in Blood Transfusion and it was chaired by Dr. Harvey G. Klein, National Institutes of Health, USA. In this book of proceedings an extraordinary range of subjects is covered, including diagnostic aspects, virology, quality control, cell and protein processing as well as a section on new horizons in clinical medicine.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - New market trends and the emergence of the so-called Internet-based `new economy' are leading companies to new forms of organization, mostly relying on privileged cooperation links. Nowadays, most manufacturing processes are not carried out by single enterprises. Rather, organizations feel the need to focus on their core competencies and join efforts with others, in order to fulfill the requirements of new products/services demanded by the global market. In a cooperative networked organization, every enterprise is just a node that adds some value to the process; namely, a step in the manufacturing/supply chain. Furthermore, manufacturing companies increasingly encompass what has typically been regarded as the domain of the service sector. They try to establish long-term relationships with their customers, in order to service their needs around a manufactured product. For these reasons, the area of virtual organizations and industrial virtual enterprises is attracting growing interest in terms of research and development, and implementation approaches for new business practices. The main emphasis of this book is on virtual enterprises and other networked organizations, with special focus on: supporting infrastructures and management of distributed business processes, intelligent multi-agent systems, knowledge management, human interfaces, and socio-economical aspects. Also included in the book are related topics on automation, both in manufacturing and transportation. Special attention is assigned to the fact that advances in information technology and new organizational paradigms will be used not only to induce new economic structures, but also to help a sustainable migration of existing systems towards the new economy. When electronic business initiatives attract such widespread attention, it is important to conciliate the `old' and `new' economies under a balanced perspective. Advances in Networked Enterprises isessential reading for researchers and engineering students in production engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, industrial sociology, and transportation, as well as for engineers and practitioners in manufacturing and transportation systems organization and planning.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Deals with the most basic notion of linear algebra, to bring emphasis on approaches to the topic serving at the elementary level and more broadly. A typical feature is where computational algorithms and theoretical proofs are brought together. Another is respect for symmetry, so that when this has some part in the form of a matter it should also be reflected in the treatment. Issues relating to computational method are covered. These interests may have suggested a limited account, to be rounded-out suitably. However this limitation where basic material is separated from further reaches of the subject has an appeal of its own. To the `elementary operations' method of the textbooks for doing linear algebra, Albert Tucker added a method with his `pivot operation'. Here there is a more primitive method based on the `linear dependence table', and yet another based on `rank reduction'. The determinant is introduced in a completely unusual upside-down fashion where Cramer's rule comes first. Also dealt with is what is believed to be a completely new idea, of the `alternant', a function associated with the affine space the way the determinant is with the linear space, with n+1 vector arguments, as the determinant has n. Then for affine (or barycentric) coordinates we find a rule which is an unprecedented exact counterpart of Cramer's rule for linear coordinates, where the alternant takes on the role of the determinant. These are among the more distinct or spectacular items for possible novelty, or unfamiliarity. Others, with or without some remark, may be found scattered in different places. 196 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Expanding Competition in Regulated Industries reviews the changing regulatory environment, notably incentive regulation and competition in regulated industries. Some of the major changes in electricity, gas, and telephone utilities allow for competition in local service through unbundling. This book is of interest to researchers, utility managers, regulatory commissions, and the Federal Government. 228 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Every human being is aware of the flow of time. This fact is embodied in the existence of such notions as the past and the future, the two domains being separated from each other by the single moment of the present. While the past is regarded as fixed and definite, the future is viewed as unknown, uncertain, and undetermined. The only perceivable moment is the present, the `now' - the ever-changing point moving from the past into the future. Physics tells us a different story: not only are the vast majority of physical laws time-reversible, but the concept of the `now' itself has no place at all in physics. In other words, the equations of physics do not distinguish between the past and the future and seem to be completely oblivious to the very idea of the present. This book discusses the biological and psychological aspects of perception of time, and the problems related to the determination of location arising from quantum physics, together with comments and opinions from philosophers and physicists. 324 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The Telecommunications Act of 1996 envisioned a competitive free-for-all in the U.S. telecommunications industry with removal of barriers to entry in local telecommunications markets and the lifting of the artificial restrictions that kept the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) out of the interLATA long-distance market. After close to 5 years, only one RBOC has been granted permission (controversially) to enter the interLATA market, and local competition has yet to provide most consumers with meaningful choices. In addition, the wave of mergers across the industry has raised the specter of putting the former Bell System back together again. Policymakers now openly question whether the Act can deliver what it promised. Three principal themes are developed in this book. First, there has been a coordination failure between Congress and the FCC in translating the principles embodied in the Act into practice. The authors provide evidence for this by analyzing stock market reactions to legislative and regulatory actions. This coordination failure was largely predictable, given the ambiguity in the Act, as well as conflicting jurisdictions between the FCC and the states. Second, the Act calls for wholesale prices to be `based on cost.' Regulators adopted a costing standard (TELRIC) that provides a means to subsidize competitive entry in local telephone service markets. The ready adoption of the TELRIC standard by regulators is shown to be tied to the third theme: price cap regulation provides regulators with `insurance' against the adverse effects of competition in local telephone markets. Statistical analysis reveals that regulators in price cap states set uniformly lower unbundled network element prices (lower barriers to entry) in comparison with regulators in rate-of-return and earnings sharing states. The result is a triumph of regulatory processes over market processes - the antithesis of the purpose of the Act. 148 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -`Biotechnology' - the integrated use of biochemistry, microbiology, and chemical engineering for the technological application of the capabilities of microbes and cultured tissue cells - is quickly becoming pervasive and challenging, rapidly developing both new techniques and industries. The Economic and Social Dynamics of Biotechnology - a joint project between Statistics Canada, the Program of Research on Innovation, Management and Economy (PRIME) at the University of Ottawa, and CIRANO at the University of Quebec in Montreal - brings together economic, social, and statistical views on the dynamics of this set of emerging technologies. It examines the costs as well as the benefits - the challenges as well as the choices - of the rapidly expanding science-based world of biodiversity, biopharmaceuticals, and bioinformatics, and it provides suggestions for future work and research. This project fits into an ongoing research program at Statistics Canada to develop meaningful indicators for science, technology, and innovation in a technology-intensive economy. This book tells the story of the inner workings of innovation systems, technological systems, and competence blocs in the production, use, and diffusion of knowledge. 304 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Science advances by leaps and bounds rather than linearly in time. I t is not uncommon for a new concept or approach to generate a lot of initial interest, only to enter a quiet period of years or decades and then suddenly reemerge as the focus of new exciting investigations. This is certainly the case of the reduced density matrices (a k a N-matrices or RDMs), whose promise of a great simplification of quantum-chemical approaches faded away when the prospects of formulating the auxil iary yet essential N-representability conditions turned quite bleak. How ever, even during the period that followed this initial disappointment, the 2-matrices and their one-particle counterparts have been ubiquitous in the formalisms of modern electronic structure theory, entering the correlated-level expressions for the first-order response properties, giv ing rise to natural spinorbitals employed in the configuration interaction method and in rigorous analysis of electronic wavefunctions, and al lowing direct calculations of ionization potentials through the extended Koopmans'theorem. The recent research of Nakatsuji, Valdemoro, and Mazziotti her alds a renaissance of the concept of RDlvls that promotes them from the role of interpretive tools and auxiliary quantities to that of central variables of new electron correlation formalisms. Thanks to the economy of information offered by RDMs, these formalisms surpass the conven tional approaches in conciseness and elegance of formulation. As such, they hold the promise of opening an entirely new chapter of quantum chemistry. 312 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -Determinants of economic growth: An overview Thijs de Ruyter van Steveninck, Nico van der Windt, and Maaike Oosterbaan Netherlands Economic Institute What causes economic growth Why have some countries grown much faster than others Why do some countries not grow at all, or even experience negative (per capita) growth rates What can governments do to raise the growth rates of their country These questions were discussed at a conference on March 23 and 24, 1998, organized by the Netherlands Economic Institute (NEI) on behalf of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This book contains the proceedings of the conference. Economic growth is widely considered as a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for poverty alleviation. During the past two decades, scholars and researchers have found a renewed interest in thinking about economic growth, and advances in the understanding of economic growth have taken place. On the one hand, the theoretical understanding of growth has progressed on various fronts, including endogenous technological innovation and increasing returns to scale; the interaction of population, fertility, human capital, and growth; international spill-overs in technology and capital accumulation; and the role of institutions. On the other hand, the increasing availability and use of data sets has given a large incentive to empirical research on cross-country growth, following the path-breaking work ofBarro (1991).Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 300 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -The Telecommunications Act of 1996 envisioned a competitive free-for-all in the U.S. telecommunications industry with removal of barriers to entry in local telecommunications markets and the lifting of the artificial restrictions that kept the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) out of the interLATA long-distance market. After close to 5 years, only one RBOC has been granted permission (controversially) to enter the interLATA market, and local competition has yet to provide most consumers with meaningful choices. In addition, the wave of mergers across the industry has raised the specter of putting the former Bell System back together again. Policymakers now openly question whether the Act can deliver what it promised.Three principal themes are developed in this book. First, there has been a coordination failure between Congress and the FCC in translating the principles embodied in the Act into practice. The authors provide evidence for this by analyzing stock market reactions to legislative and regulatory actions. This coordination failure was largely predictable, given the ambiguity in the Act, as well as conflicting jurisdictions between the FCC and the states.Second, the Act calls for wholesale prices to be `based on cost.' Regulators adopted a costing standard (TELRIC) that provides a means to subsidize competitive entry in local telephone service markets. The ready adoption of the TELRIC standard by regulators is shown to be tied to the third theme: price cap regulation provides regulators with `insurance' against the adverse effects of competition in local telephone markets. Statistical analysis reveals that regulators in price cap states set uniformly lower unbundled network element prices (lower barriers to entry) in comparison with regulators in rate-of-return and earnings sharing states. The result is a triumph of regulatory processes over market processes - the antithesis of the purpose of the Act.Springer-Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 148 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -`Biotechnology' - the integrated use of biochemistry, microbiology, and chemical engineering for the technological application of the capabilities of microbes and cultured tissue cells - is quickly becoming pervasive and challenging, rapidly developing both new techniques and industries.The Economic and Social Dynamics of Biotechnology - a joint project between Statistics Canada, the Program of Research on Innovation, Management and Economy (PRIME) at the University of Ottawa, and CIRANO at the University of Quebec in Montreal - brings together economic, social, and statistical views on the dynamics of this set of emerging technologies. It examines the costs as well as the benefits - the challenges as well as the choices - of the rapidly expanding science-based world of biodiversity, biopharmaceuticals, and bioinformatics, and it provides suggestions for future work and research. This project fits into an ongoing research program at Statistics Canada to develop meaningful indicators for science, technology, and innovation in a technology-intensive economy. This book tells the story of the inner workings of innovation systems, technological systems, and competence blocs in the production, use, and diffusion of knowledge.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 304 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -Proceedings of the European Membrane Society XVI Annual Summer School on Integration of Membrane Processes into Bioconversions, held August 22-27, 1999, in Veszprém, Hungary.The purpose of this book is to give an overview of the current situation of membrane separation processes in the field of bioengineering and also to describe how their joint application possibilities can be used in both laboratory and industrial scale applications. In commercial applications, focus is centered on the fields of food industry, chemical/fine chemical industry, and environmental protection.Most of the European experts in the interdisciplinary fields of membrane processes and bioconversions have contributed to the chapters in this work, making it the most up-to-date volume currently available.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 260 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -Expanding Competition in Regulated Industries reviews the changing regulatory environment, notably incentive regulation and competition in regulated industries. Some of the major changes in electricity, gas, and telephone utilities allow for competition in local service through unbundling. This book is of interest to researchers, utility managers, regulatory commissions, and the Federal Government.Springer-Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 228 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -If a heavy particle ion (atom, molecule, muon) collides with another in the gas phase at speeds approaching the speed of light, the time-dependent Dirac equation equation must be used for its description, including quantum electro-dynamic, special relativity and magnetic coupling effects.In this book we study one electron in the variety of rearrangement collisions: radiative and non-radiative capture, ionization, capture by pair (one electron, one positron) production and antihydrogen production. Our relativistic continuum distorted-wave theory accounts extremely well for the simultaneous behaviour of the electron with respect to the nuclear charges of the projectile and the target.This is the first book developed in this subject. Containing many diagrams and tables, and fully referenced, it goes beyond chapters in previous books. The relativistic continuum distorted-wave theory developed by the authors group, is shown to be fully Hermitean. Detailed mathematics are provided in nine appendices.Springer-Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 328 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -Science advances by leaps and bounds rather than linearly in time. I t is not uncommon for a new concept or approach to generate a lot of initial interest, only to enter a quiet period of years or decades and then suddenly reemerge as the focus of new exciting investigations. This is certainly the case of the reduced density matrices (a k a N-matrices or RDMs), whose promise of a great simplification of quantum-chemical approaches faded away when the prospects of formulating the auxil iary yet essential N-representability conditions turned quite bleak. How ever, even during the period that followed this initial disappointment, the 2-matrices and their one-particle counterparts have been ubiquitous in the formalisms of modern electronic structure theory, entering the correlated-level expressions for the first-order response properties, giv ing rise to natural spinorbitals employed in the configuration interaction method and in rigorous analysis of electronic wavefunctions, and al lowing direct calculations of ionization potentials through the extended Koopmans'theorem. The recent research of Nakatsuji, Valdemoro, and Mazziotti her alds a renaissance of the concept of RDlvls that promotes them from the role of interpretive tools and auxiliary quantities to that of central variables of new electron correlation formalisms. Thanks to the economy of information offered by RDMs, these formalisms surpass the conven tional approaches in conciseness and elegance of formulation. As such, they hold the promise of opening an entirely new chapter of quantum chemistry.Springer-Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 320 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -`Rofé's book is a unique scientific contribution to the understanding of psychopathological phenomena. He does more to unravel the mystery of the underlying causes of psychological disorders than we've seen in a long time. His book The Rationality of Psychological Disorders is a `true endeavor that presents a definite challenge to the scientific community of Psychology'. This book is a must-read for scientists, mental health professionals and others who search for the logic and rationale in the irrational and bizarre.' Elizabeth F. Loftus, University of Washington, Past President, American Psychological Society.`The notion of repression is crucial to many psychological theories, but serious questions have been raised about it. Indeed, some investigators have questioned whether repression even exists. In this book, Professor Rofé offers provocative ideas concerning repression and its role in psychopathology in general. His ideas merit attention and I can highly recommend his book for both researchers and clinicians.' David S. Holmes, Chancellor and Distinguished Professor, University of Kansas.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 432 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -Every human being is aware of the flow of time. This fact is embodied in the existence of such notions as the past and the future, the two domains being separated from each other by the single moment of the present. While the past is regarded as fixed and definite, the future is viewed as unknown, uncertain, and undetermined. The only perceivable moment is the present, the `now' - the ever-changing point moving from the past into the future.Physics tells us a different story: not only are the vast majority of physical laws time-reversible, but the concept of the `now' itself has no place at all in physics. In other words, the equations of physics do not distinguish between the past and the future and seem to be completely oblivious to the very idea of the present.This book discusses the biological and psychological aspects of perception of time, and the problems related to the determination of location arising from quantum physics, together with comments and opinions from philosophers and physicists.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 324 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Determinants of economic growth: An overview Thijs de Ruyter van Steveninck, Nico van der Windt, and Maaike Oosterbaan Netherlands Economic Institute What causes economic growth Why have some countries grown much faster than others Why do some countries not grow at all, or even experience negative (per capita) growth rates What can governments do to raise the growth rates of their country These questions were discussed at a conference on March 23 and 24, 1998, organized by the Netherlands Economic Institute (NEI) on behalf of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This book contains the proceedings of the conference. Economic growth is widely considered as a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for poverty alleviation. During the past two decades, scholars and researchers have found a renewed interest in thinking about economic growth, and advances in the understanding of economic growth have taken place. On the one hand, the theoretical understanding of growth has progressed on various fronts, including endogenous technological innovation and increasing returns to scale; the interaction of population, fertility, human capital, and growth; international spill-overs in technology and capital accumulation; and the role of institutions. On the other hand, the increasing availability and use of data sets has given a large incentive to empirical research on cross-country growth, following the path-breaking work ofBarro (1991). 300 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Proceedings of the European Membrane Society XVI Annual Summer School on Integration of Membrane Processes into Bioconversions, held August 22-27, 1999, in Veszprém, Hungary. The purpose of this book is to give an overview of the current situation of membrane separation processes in the field of bioengineering and also to describe how their joint application possibilities can be used in both laboratory and industrial scale applications. In commercial applications, focus is centered on the fields of food industry, chemical/fine chemical industry, and environmental protection. Most of the European experts in the interdisciplinary fields of membrane processes and bioconversions have contributed to the chapters in this work, making it the most up-to-date volume currently available. 260 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The Economic and Business Consequences of the EMU A Challenge for Governments, Financial Institutions and Firms Hubert Ooghe Conference Chairman, Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School alld Ghent University EMU finally got under way on 1 st January 1999. Since then 11 European countries share a common currency, the Euro, and pursue a common monetary policy managed by the European Central Bank (ECB). After forty years of economic integration, Euroland has the wherewithal with which to enter the 21 st century. However monetary union has implications for nearly all areas of economic activity and decision-making. Throughout the academic world researchers are fully occupied with the theoretical analysis of the impact of the Euro and the effects of incorporating the new operational framework into their economic models. Businesses and government departments are concerned primarily with the practical implementation of the single currency. For all those who playa part in the economy, it is a question of making the most of the macro and micro economic opportunities offered by the Euro and minimising any threats. On 17th and 18th March 2000, after the EMU and Euro were in operation for one year, an international conference was held in Ghent (Belgium) on the economic consequences of the introduction of the EMU and the Euro for governments, financial institutions and firms. 452 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Multimedia surveillance systems is an emerging field that includes signal and image processing, communications, and computer vision. Multimedia Video-Based Surveillance Systems: Requirements, Issues and Solutions, combines the most recent research results from these areas for use by engineers and end-users involved in the design of surveillance systems in the fields of transportation and services. The book covers emerging surveillance requirements, including new digital sensors for real-time acquisition of surveillance data, low-level image processing algorithms, and event detection methods. It also discusses problems related to knowledge representation in surveillance systems, wireless and wired multimedia networks, and a new generation of surveillance communication tools. Timely information is presented on digital watermarking, broadband multimedia transmission, legal use of surveillance systems, performance evaluation criteria, and other new and emerging topics, along with applications for transports and pedestrian monitoring. The information contained in Multimedia Video-Based Surveillance Systems: Requirements, Issues and Solutions, bridges the distance between present practice and research findings, and the book is an indispensable reference tool for professional engineers. 308 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Multimedia data comprising of images, audio and video is becoming increasingly common. The decreasing costs of consumer electronic devices such as digital cameras and digital camcorders, along with the ease of transportation facilitated by the Internet, has lead to a phenomenal rise in the amount of multimedia data generated and distributed. Given that this trend of increased use of multimedia data is likely to accelerate, there is an urgent need for providing a clear means of capturing, storing, indexing, retrieving, analyzing and summarizing such data. Content-based access to multimedia data is of primary importance since it is the natural way by which human beings interact with such information. To facilitate the content-based access of multimedia information, the first step is to derive feature measures from these data so that a feature space representation of the data content can be formed. This can subsequently allow for mapping the feature space to the symbol space (semantics) either automatically or through human intervention. Thus, signal to symbol mapping, useful for any practical system, can be successfully achieved. Perspectives on Content-Based Multimedia Systems provides a comprehensive set of techniques to tackle these important issues. This book offers detailed solutions to a wide range of practical problems in building real systems by providing specifics of three systems built by the authors. While providing a systems focus, it also equips the reader with a keen understanding of the fundamental issues, including a formalism for content-based multimedia database systems, multimedia feature extraction, object-based techniques, signature-based techniques and fuzzy retrieval techniques. The performance evaluation issues of practical systems is also explained. This book brings together essential elements of building a content-based multimedia database system in a way that makes them accessible to practitioners in computer science and electrical engineering. It can also serve as a textbook for graduate-level courses. 408 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the International Society for Research in Human Milk and Lactation (ISRHML), October 2-6, 1999, Bavaria, Germany. The quality of infant feeding is of major importance for child health development and well being, and breast feeding is the natural form of supplying food to the infant and is considered to be ideally adapted to the needs of both mother and child. This contributed volume therefore, brings together the research on the physiological foundations and on the biological effects of breast feeding, both short and long term. This book contains the work of scientists from over thirty countries, many of whom are leading researchers in their fields, and details papers presented by the invited speakers of the conference and short summaries of presentations of original research results. 468 pp. Englisch.