Springer jul 2008 (572 resultados)

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. Neuware -The Funk Era and Beyond is the first scholarly collection to discuss the significance of funk music in America. Contributors employ a multitude of methodologies to examine this unique musical genre's relationship to African American culture and to music, literature, and visual art as a whole. 262 pp. Englisch. …

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - Conceptualization and measurement of poverty have traditionally relied on purely economic approaches, with income or consumption as the only indicator. Multidimensional approaches have increasingly been used to understand poverty, but have yet to be fully operationalized. This book uses factor analysis and structural equations modelling to develop a multidimensional framework that integrates capability and social inclusion as additional poverty indicators. The empirical relevance of this methodological contribution is demonstrated through its application in the United States and Nepal.The proposed approach not only helps to identify different categories of the poor, but also to more accurately target resources and policies of poverty alleviation. The book will therefore be an important reference for professionals in development agencies as well as for poverty and policy researchers.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - Sponsored by the American Real Estate Society (ARES), Indigenous Peoples and Real Estate Valuation addresses a wide variety of timely issues relating to property ownership, rights, and use, including: ancestral burial, historical record of occupancy, treaty implementation problems, eminent domain, the effects of large governmental change, financing projects under formal and informal title or deed document systems, exclusive ownership vs. non-exclusive use rights, public land ownership, tribal or family land claims, insurgency and war, legal systems of ownership, prior government expropriation of lands, moral obligation to indigenous peoples, colonial occupation, and common land leases. These issues can also be broadly grouped into topics, such as conflict between indigenous and western property rights, communal land ownership, land transfer by force, legacy issues related to past colonization and apartheid, and metaphysical/indigenous land value.…

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Barrie Jones addresses the question 'are we alone ', which is one of the most frequently asked questions by scientists and non-scientists alike. In The Search for Life Continued, this question is addressed scientifically, and the author is not afraid to include speculation. Indeed, the author believes beyond reasonable doubt that we are not alone and this belief is based firmly on frontier science of the most imaginative kind.Theauthor concentrates on planetary systems beyond our own but starts with life on Earth, which is the only life we know to exist, and which provides guidance on how best to search for life elsewhere. Planets are the most likely abode of life and so we start the quest with the search for planets beyond the Solar System - exoplanets. The methods of searching are outlined and the nature ofhundreds ofexoplanetary systems so far discovered described. In the near future we expect to discover habitable Earth-like planets. But are they actually inhabited How could we tell All will be revealed.This full color book is written for everybody who wants to stay inclose contactwith the latest on possible life on other planets. 277 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Artificial systems that think and behave intelligently are one of the most exciting and challenging goals of Artificial Intelligence. Action Programming is the art and science of devising high-level control strategies for autonomous systems which employ a mental model of their environment and which reason about their actions as a means to achieve their goals. Applications of this programming paradigm include autonomous software agents, mobile robots with high-level reasoning capabilities, and General Game Playing. These lecture notes give an in-depth introduction to the current state-of-the-art in action programming. The main topics are knowledge representation for actions, procedural action programming, planning, agent logic programs, and reactive, behavior-based agents. The only prerequisite for understanding the material in these lecture notes is some general programming experience and basic knowledge of classical first-order logic. Table of Contents: Introduction / Mathematical Preliminaries / Procedural Action Programs / Action Programs and Planning / Declarative Action Programs / Reactive Action Programs / Suggested Further Reading 100 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book provides an introduction to narrowband array signal processing, classical and subspace-based direction of arrival (DOA) estimation with an extensive discussion on adaptive direction of arrival algorithms. The book begins with a presentation of the basic theory, equations, and data models of narrowband arrays. It then discusses basic beamforming methods and describes how they relate to DOA estimation. Several of the most common classical and subspace-based direction of arrival methods are discussed. The book concludes with an introduction to subspace tracking and shows how subspace tracking algorithms can be used to form an adaptive DOA estimator. Simulation software and additional bibliography are given at the end of the book.Table of Contents: Introduction / Background on Array Processing / Nonadaptive Direction of Arrival Estimation / Adaptive Direction of Arrival Estimation / Appendix 84 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book is about relations between three different areas of mathematics and theoretical computer science: combinatorial group theory, cryptography, and complexity theory. It is explored how non-commutative (infinite) groups, which are typically studied in combinatorial group theory, can be used in public key cryptography. It is also shown that there is a remarkable feedback from cryptography to combinatorial group theory because some of the problems motivated by cryptography appear to be new to group theory, and they open many interesting research avenues within group theory.Then, complexity theory, notably generic-case complexity of algorithms, is employed for cryptanalysis of various cryptographic protocols based on infinite groups, and the ideas and machinery from the theory of generic-case complexity are used to study asymptotically dominant properties of some infinite groups that have been applied in public key cryptography so far. Its elementary exposition makes the book accessible to graduate as well as undergraduate students in mathematics or computer science. 183 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -As new displays and cameras offer enhanced color capabilities, there is a need to extend the precision of digital content. High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging encodes images and video with higher than normal 8 bit-per-color-channel precision, enabling representation of the complete color gamut and the full visible range of luminance.However, to realize transition from the traditional toHDRimaging, it is necessary to develop imaging algorithms that work with the high-precision data. Tomake such algorithms effective and feasible in practice, it is necessary to take advantage of the limitations of the human visual system by aligning the data shortcomings to those of the human eye, thus limiting storage and processing precision. Therefore, human visual perception is the key component of the solutions we discuss in this book.This book presents a complete pipeline forHDR image and video processing fromacquisition, through compression and quality evaluation, to display. At the HDR image and video acquisition stage specialized HDR sensors or multi-exposure techniques suitable for traditional cameras are discussed. Then, we present a practical solution for pixel values calibration in terms of photometric or radiometric quantities, which are required in some technically oriented applications. Also, we cover the problem of efficient image and video compression and encoding either for storage or transmission purposes, including the aspect of backward compatibility with existing formats. Finally, we review existing HDR display technologies and the associated problems of image contrast and brightness adjustment. For this purpose tone mapping is employed to accommodate HDR content to LDR devices. Conversely, the so-called inverse tone mapping is required to upgrade LDR content for displaying on HDR devices. We overview HDR-enabled image and video quality metrics, which are needed to verify algorithms at all stages of the pipeline. Additionally, we cover successful examples of the HDR technology applications, in particular, in computer graphics and computer vision.The goal of this book is to present all discussed components of the HDR pipeline with the main focus on video. For some pipeline stages HDR video solutions are either not well established or do not exist at all, in which case we describe techniques for single HDR images. In such cases we attempt to select the techniques, which can be extended into temporal domain. Whenever needed, relevant background information on human perception is given, which enables better understanding of the design choices behind the discussed algorithms and HDR equipment.Table of Contents: Introduction / Representation of an HDR Image / HDR Image and Video Acquisition / HDR Image Quality / HDR Image, Video, and Texture Compression / Tone Reproduction / HDR Display Devices / LDR2HDR: Recovering Dynamic Range in Legacy Content / HDRI in Computer Graphics / Software 172 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Interactive display and visualization of large geometric and textured models is becoming a fundamental capability. There are numerous application areas, including games, movies, CAD, virtual prototyping, and scientific visualization. One of observations about geometric models used in interactive applications is that their model complexity continues to increase because of fundamental advances in 3D modeling, simulation, and data capture technologies.As computing power increases, users take advantage of the algorithmic advances and generate even more complex models and data sets. Therefore, there are many cases where we are required to visualize massive models that consist of hundreds of millions of triangles and, even, billions of triangles. However, interactive visualization and handling of such massive models still remains a challenge in computer graphics and visualization. In this monograph we discuss various techniques that enable interactive visualization of massive models.These techniques include visibility computation, simplification, levels-of-detail, and cache-coherent data management.We believe that the combinations of these techniques can make it possible to interactively visualize massive models in commodity hardware.Table of Contents: Introduction / Visibility / Simplification and Levels of Detail / Alternative Representations / Cache-Coherent Data Management / Conclusions / Bibliography 124 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Many products are designed with aesthetic sculptured surfaces to enhance their appearance, an important factor in customer satisfaction, especially for automotive and consumer electronics products. In other cases, products have sculptured surfaces to meet functional requirements. Functional surfaces interact with the environment or with other surfaces. Because of this, functional surfaces can also be called dynamic surfaces. Functional surfaces do not possess the property to slide over itself, which causes significant complexity in machining of sculptured surfaces. The application of multiaxis numerically controlled (NC) machines is the only way for an efficient machining of sculptured surfaces. Reduction of machining time is a critical issue when machining sculptured surfaces on multiaxis NC machines. To reduce the machining cost of a sculptured surface, the machining time must be as short as possible.Table of Contents: Introduction / Analytical Representation of Scupltured Surfaces / Kinematics of Sculptured-Surface Machining / Analytical Description of the Geometry of Contact of the Sculptured Surface and of the Generating Surface of the Form-Cutting Tool / Form-Cutting Tools of Optimal Design / Conditions of Proper Sculptured-Surface Generation / Predicted Accuracy of the Machined Sculptured Surface / Optimal Sculptured-Surface Machining 124 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Representations are at the heart of artificial intelligence (AI). This book is devoted to the problem of representation discovery: how can an intelligent system construct representations from its experience Representation discovery re-parameterizes the state space - prior to the application of information retrieval, machine learning, or optimization techniques - facilitating later inference processes by constructing new task-specific bases adapted to the state space geometry. This book presents a general approach to representation discovery using the framework of harmonic analysis, in particular Fourier and wavelet analysis. Biometric compression methods, the compact disc, the computerized axial tomography (CAT) scanner in medicine, JPEG compression, and spectral analysis of time-series data are among the many applications of classical Fourier and wavelet analysis. A central goal of this book is to show that these analytical tools can be generalized from their usual setting in (infinite-dimensional) Euclidean spaces to discrete (finite-dimensional) spaces typically studied in many subfields of AI. Generalizing harmonic analysis to discrete spaces poses many challenges: a discrete representation of the space must be adaptively acquired; basis functions are not pre-defined, but rather must be constructed. Algorithms for efficiently computing and representing bases require dealing with the curse of dimensionality. However, the benefits can outweigh the costs, since the extracted basis functions outperform parametric bases as they often reflect the irregular shape of a particular state space. Case studies from computer graphics, information retrieval, machine learning, and state space planning are used to illustrate the benefits of the proposed framework, and the challenges that remain to be addressed. Representation discovery is an actively developing field, and the author hopes this book will encourage other researchers to explore this exciting area of research. Table of Contents: Overview / Vector Spaces / Fourier Bases on Graphs / Multiscale Bases on Graphs / Scaling to Large Spaces / Case Study: State-Space Planning / Case Study: Computer Graphics / Case Study: Natural Language / Future Directions 160 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -A comprehensive, highly readable account of complex, technical, political and human endeavor and a worthy successor to Creating the International Space Station (Springer Praxis, January 2002) by David Harland and John Catchpole. This volume details for the first time the construction and occupation of the International Space Station from 2002 through to 2008, when it should reach American 'Core Complete'. 416 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This remarkable book is a unique insight into the people involved in the development of the Salyut space station and the crews assigned to operate it. It describes the rotation between the crews, analyses the decision to send the back-up crew on Soyuz 11 and recounts the intrigues and difficult relationships between all the personalities involved - politicians, CKBEM managers, designers, generals and cosmonauts. Biographies of the Soyuz 11 cosmonauts are published for the first time in English and the longest manned space mission of the time is described before Grujica Ivanovich gives a unique summary of the most tragic day in the Soviet/Russian manned space program. An investigation into the cause of the tragic deaths of the Soyuz 11 cosmonauts precedes a description of the post-Salyut era, showing how the legacy of the first space station has survived for decades. The first two chapters provide the history of the first Soviet space station projects Almaz, Soyuz-R, MKS and DOS from 1964 to1970 and cover the selection of DOS-1 crews in 1971, their training and crew rotations. Chapter 3 launches the Salyut space station with its first crew to occupy the first space station, while Chapter 4 portrays the drama of the Soyuz 10 mission in April 1971, which failed to dock with Salyut due to a broken docking probe element, culminating a dramatic night return to the Earth. The following two chapters describe the State Commission's decision to replace the original crew of Soyuz 11 two days before the launch in June 1971 and introduce cosmonauts Dobrovolysky, Volkov and Patcayev. The launch of Soyuz 11, its docking with Salyut and the first days aboard the space station are described in Chapter 7 and the fire which almost curtailed the mission and led to Dobrovolsky and Volkov's deteriorating relationship is then covered. The final stages of the mission, including the problems with the hatch before Soyuz 11 separated from the Salyut space station, areexplained before the author details the separation of the orbital and service modules and the tragic mistake made by the cosmonauts. Chapter 10 describes the normal landing of Soyuz 11, the discovery of and attempts to revive the dead cosmonauts.and includes the first interview with one of the rescuers. The author then demonstrates how detailed analysis found that, after separation from the orbital module, the internal pressure in the descent module dropped from 920mm to zero in 112 seconds due to the premature opening of one of the valves. Without spacesuits, the cosmonauts had only 15-20 seconds to close the valve and save their lives. An attempt by Dobrovolsky sadly failed. Further investigation identified numerous problems which contributed to the tragedy, including the valve technology, leaking of personal protection equipment, problems with the hatch and omissions in crew training, as well as confusion between the cosmonauts. The last chapters describe the Post-Salyut era. After three single modular stations, in 1986 the USSR launched the base module of the third generation space station Mir, which has six docking probes. In the following years, Mir grew rapidly and was extended with five additional scientific modules to become a true space outpost continually occupied by humans, the dream of space pioneers. The service module Zvezda, a modified Salyut/DOS-1, currently serves as a core for the International Space Station. The book ends with memories of all those affected by the DOS program and the tragedy of the heroic Soyuz 11 crew and looks forward to a continuation of the historic mission of Salyut. 456 pp. Englisch. …

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -In this new textbook, acclaimed author John Stillwell presents a lucid introduction to Lie theory suitable for junior and senior level undergraduates. In order to achieve this, he focuses on the so-called 'classical groups'' that capture the symmetries of real, complex, and quaternion spaces. These symmetry groups may be represented by matrices, which allows them to be studied by elementary methods from calculus and linear algebra.This naive approach to Lie theory is originally due to von Neumann, and it is now possible to streamline it by using standard results of undergraduate mathematics. To compensate for the limitations of the naive approach, end of chapter discussions introduce important results beyond those proved in the book, as part of an informal sketch of Lie theory and its history.John Stillwell is Professor of Mathematics at the University of San Francisco. He is the author of several highly regarded books published by Springer, including The Four Pillars of Geometry (2005), Elements of Number Theory (2003), Mathematics and Its History (Second Edition, 2002), Numbers and Geometry (1998) and Elements of Algebra (1994). 232 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -How important is the notion of community to skilled social work Thisbook explores how the concept relates to policy, theory and professional practice. With analysis of contemporary social problems throughout a variety of community settings, this book demonstrates how important community-based approaches are to all social workers today. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Ann Kelly's provocative book breaks the mold of Swift studies. Twentieth century Swift scholars have tended to assess Jonathan Swift as a pillar of the eighteenth-century 'republic of letter', a conservative, even reactionary voice upholding classical values against the welling tide of popularization in literature. Kelly looks at Swift instead as a practical exponent of the popular and impressario of the literary image. She argues that Swift turned his back on the elite to write for a popular audience, and that he annexed scandals to his fictionalized print alter ego, creating a continual demand for works by or about this self-mythologized figure. A fascinating look at print culture, the commodification of the author, and the history of popular culture, this book should provoke lots of discussion. 244 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book examines the successes and failures of George W. Bush as a War President. The author critically assesses the administration's key decisions in the war on terror and President Bush's vision of creating a democratic Middle East. 284 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -As India's attempts to carve out a foreign policy that is in sync with the irrising international stature,they are having to deal with a range of issues that are controversial but central to the future of an Indian global strategy. This book examines these issues and deduces major trends in Indian foreign policy. 202 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -One path towards development taken by a number of small jurisdictions is the establishment of an offshore financial centre. This text analyses the actual economic contribution for several small Caribbean economies and the impact to continued operation arising from an international initiative for the exchange of taxpayer information. 198 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -In this volume a series of contributions look at the impact of direct democracy on those processes of representative democracy to raise - and answer - the question: Does direct democracy harm representative democracy 199 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book explores the process by which constitutions and democratic institutions are constructed. Wing focuses on how innovative constitutional dialogues involving participation, negotiation, and recognition of groups previously excluded from political decision-making may be the key to a legitimate constitution. 245 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Please note this is a 'Palgrave to Order' title. Stock of this book requires shipment from an overseas supplier. It will be delivered to you within 12 weeks. This book grapples with two basic questions. What is history And How can history help illuminate contemporary concerns about the nature and character of America's schools From antiquity to the postmodern present, history has served multiple purposes, including a basic human need to learn from what came before. Americans have long invested considerable time, energy, and emotion in their schools, both private and public, and a knowledge of history helps explain why. 219 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book critically investigates the conditions facing the warring parties during the implementation of peace agreements in Mozambique, Angola and Liberia, as successes and failures in these countries highlight incentives for the international community to keep peace processes from faltering. 218 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Global politics is a crowded stage of players competing for power and authority. Who is in charge of what How do they stay in charge and what are the effects This volume raises these questions in case studies on regimes of torture and surveillance in women's rights, border control, media, global capital and religion. 240 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book compares rebel media use in three Mesoamerican rebellions: the Nicaraguan Revolution, the Salvadoran civil war and the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico. Directly comparing media use in all three rebellions provides a richer understanding of the role of media in social change, particularly violent change. 226 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book examines the role governments play in managing policy challenges such as religion, romance, gender relations, same-sex marriages and privacy protection in response to social changes in marriage. Elizabeth van Acker asks whether governments can or should intervene in this personal sphere. 249 pp. Englisch. …

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book discusses the relationship between financial liberalization, financial deepening and economic performance from both a theoretical and a policy perspective, comparing several 'big' emerging countries: Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Russia, South Africa and India, amongst others. 221 pp. Englisch. …

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -New Deal Theater recovers a much ignored model of political theater for cultural criticism.While considered to be less radical in its aesthetics and politics than its celebrated Weimar and Soviet cousins, it nonetheless proved to be highly effective in asserting cultural critique. In this regard it offers a vital alternative to the dominant modernist paradigm developed in Europe. Rather than radicalizing content and form, New Deal theater insisted that the political had to be made commensurable with the language of a mass audience steeped in consumer culture.The resulting vernacular praxis emphasized empathy over alienation, verisimilitude over abstraction. By examining the cultural vectors that shaped this theater, Saal shows why it was more successful on the American stage than its European counterpart and develops a theory of vernacular political theater which can help us think of the political in art in other than modernist terms. 232 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Please note this is a 'Palgrave to Order' title (PTO). Stock of this book requires shipment from an overseas supplier. It will be delivered to you within 12 weeks. This book offers the first history of the Filipinos in the United States, focusing on the significance of the Moro people's struggle for self-determination. 265 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This collection of essays offers a fresh perspective on the definition and origins of terrorism, broadening the field to include slave revolts and urban tensions, and considering how the 'war on terrorism' had already matured by 1870 as a way to justify often bloody campaigns against labor unions, nationalist freedom fighters, and reformers. 246 pp. Englisch.…