springer springer aug 1999 (326 resultados)

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - Algebra Interactive! is an HTML-based course for undergraduate students in all fields of science, e.g. mathematics, computer science, physics and (electrical) engineering. The novel features of Algebra Interactive are the interactive examples and tools for computing in the various structures. Many of these tools and examples use the computer package GAP, which comes with Algebra Interactive, as a back engine. Moreover, abstract notations are enlivened by Java applets, which go beyond the classical examples given in traditional textbooks. The course contains numerous exercises. Apart from the classical type of exercise (with hints and solutions), the product also presents interactive multiple-choice questions on each page and at the end of each chapter. A comprehensive accompanying printed book summarizes the contents of Algebra Interactive.

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - We act for reasons. But, it is sometimes claimed, the mental states and events that make up reasons, are not sufficient conditions of actions. Reasons never make actions happen. We- as agents (persons, selves, subjects) - make our actions happen. Actions are done by us, not elicited by reasons. The present essay is an attempt to understand this concept of agent causality. Who -~ or what - is an agent And how - in virtue of what - does an agent do things, or refrain from doing them The first chapter deals with problems in the theory of action that seem to require the assumption that actions are controlled by agents. Chapters two and three then review and discuss theories of agent cau sality. Chapters four and five make up the central parts of the essay in which my own solution is put forth, and chapter six presents some data that seem to support this view. Chapter seven discusses how the theory can be reconciled with neuro-physiological facts. And in the last two chapters the theory is confronted with conflicting viewpoints and phe nomena. Daniel Robinson and Richard Swinburne took time to read parts of the manuscript in draft form. Though they disagree with my main viewpoints on the nature of the self, their conunents were very helpful. I hereby thank them both.

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - Einstein Meets Magritte: An Interdisciplinary Reflection presents insights of the renowned key speakers of the interdisciplinary Einstein meets Magritte conference (1995, Brussels Free University). The contributions elaborate on fundamental questions of science, with regard to the contemporary world, and push beyond the borders of traditional approaches. All of the articles in this volume address this fundamental theme, but somewhere along the road the volume expanded to become much more than a mere expression of the conference's dynamics. The articles not only deal with several scientific disciplines, they also confront these fields with the full spectrum of contemporary life, and become new science. As such, this volume presents a state-of-the-art reflection of science in the world today, in all its diversity. The contributions are accessible to a large audience of scientists, students, educators, and everyone who wants to keep up with science today.

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - Operating Systems and Services brings together in one place important contributions and up-to-date research results in this fast moving area. Operating Systems and Services serves as an excellent reference, providing insight into some of the most challenging research issues in the field.

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - The articles collected in this volume point out that society as a whole is changing. Social change is due not only to changes in technology and economy, but also to the changing strategies and discourses of social scientists. To what exactly will this change lead in the 21st century What kind of society lies ahead In this book the reader will find many arguments and hints pertaining to these questions. She/he will be confronted by a plethora of enriching conceptions of the relationships between social sciences and social changes.

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - Stochastically-Based Semantic Analysis investigates the problem of automatic natural language understanding in a spoken language dialog system. The focus is on the design of a stochastic parser and its evaluation with respect to a conventional rule-based method. Stochastically-Based Semantic Analysis will be of most interest to researchers in artificial intelligence, especially those in natural language processing, computational linguistics, and speech recognition. It will also appeal to practicing engineers who work in the area of interactive speech systems.

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - Health researchers routinely evaluate health and illness across subgroups defined by their sex, gender, ethnicity, and race. All too often, these classifications are proffered as an explanation for any differences that may be detected, for example, in access to care, frequency of disease, or response to treatment. Relatively few researchers, however, have examined what these classifications mean on a theoretical level or in the context of their own research. Assume, for example, that a researcher concludes from his or her data that African- Americans utilize certain surgical procedures less frequently than whites. This conclusion may mean little without an examination of the various underlying issues. Is there such a construct as race at all How were whites and African-Americans classified as such Does this finding reflect inappropriate overutilization of the specific procedures among whites or inappropriate underutilization among African-Americans To what extent are socioeconomic status and method of payment related to the less frequent use Are there differences in the manner in which health care providers present the various treatment options to whites and to African- Americans that could account for these differences in utilization Are there differences in health care-seeking and health care preferences between the two groups that would explain the difference in utilization Is the racial classification a surrogate measure for another variable that has remained unidentified and unmeasured All too often, unfortunately, such issues are ignored or lightly dismissed with an entreaty for additional research.

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - To what degree should decision making power and authority be concentrated in central institutions and individuals The conventional wisdom of centrality has swung in favour of decentralization. This book investigates the evidence of divergence in Asia Pacific.

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - This book considers philosophy to be more than mere reflection. Through philosophy, humankind can give meaning to the world. In part, this book re-evaluates the philosophy of Leo Apostel, who dedicated his life to the investigation of the use of philosophy in everyday life. But it is also a presentation of international research carried out along the lines of the worldviews project. The contributions address not only professional philosophers, but also students, teachers, academics and everyone interested in the relationship between philosophy and the world.

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - Multimedia is changing the design of database and information retrieval systems. The accumulation of audio, image, and video content is of little use in these systems if the content cannot be retrieved on demand, a critical requirement that has led to the development of new technologies for the analysis and indexing of media data. In turn, these technologies seek to derive information or features from a data type that can facilitate rapid retrieval, efficient compression, and logical presentation of the data. Significant work that has not been addressed, however, is the benefits of analyzing more than one data type simultaneously. Computed Synchronization for Multimedia Applications presents a new framework for the simultaneous analysis of multiple media data objects. The primary benefit of this analysis is computed synchronization, a temporal and spatial alignment of multiple media objects. Computed Synchronization for Multimedia Applications also presents several specific applications and a general structure for the solution of computed synchronization problems. The applications demonstrate the use of this structure. Two applications in particular are described in detail: the alignment of text to speech audio, and the alignment of simultaneous English language translations of ancient texts. Many additional applications are discussed as future uses of the technology. Computed Synchronization for Multimedia Applications is useful to researchers, students, and developers seeking to apply computed synchronization in many fields. It is also suitable as a reference for a graduate-level course in multimedia data retrieval.

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - Flexible Incentives for the Adoption of Environmental Technologies in Agriculture identifies and structures more flexible economic incentives for the achievement of environmental goals in agriculture. It provides a conceptual framework and presents case studies that analyze how flexible incentives can address environmental problems that are caused by agricultural production. The book brings together economists, agency personnel and political economists for the purpose of exploring how new cutting-edge economic tools could be developed and applied to environmental problems. The goal of the book is to complement and to expand the economic theory of environmental regulation and technology adoption with new research findings. The key theme of this book is the important role technology takes when addressing environmental problems. New technologies and technical development are broadly defined to include economic instruments, innovative ways to communicate environmental information, new economic institutions, and education. This book is designed for public and private policymakers, government analysts, teachers, researchers and students who specialize in the fields of natural resources, agricultural economics and environmental regulation. It provides a fresh perspective on what types of incentives may be used to lead us to the desired environmental outcomes and offers new ideas about the types of economic instruments that may achieve these outcomes.

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - Computational Models of Mixed-Initiative Interaction brings together research that spans several disciplines related to artificial intelligence, including natural language processing, information retrieval, machine learning, planning, and computer-aided instruction, to account for the role that mixed initiative plays in the design of intelligent systems. The ten contributions address the single issue of how control of an interaction should be managed when abilities needed to solve a problem are distributed among collaborating agents. Managing control of an interaction among humans and computers to gather and assemble knowledge and expertise is a major challenge that must be met to develop machines that effectively collaborate with humans. This is the first collection to specifically address this issue.

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - The aim of IFIP Working Group 2.7 (13.4) for User Interface Engineering is to investigate the nature, concepts and construction of user interfaces for software systems. The group's scope is: - developing user interfaces based on knowledge of system and user behaviour; - developing frameworks for reasoning about interactive systems; and - developing engineering models for user interfaces. Every three years, the group holds a 'working conference' on these issues. The conference mixes elements of a regular conference and a workshop. As in a regular conference, the papers describe relatively mature work and are thoroughly reviewed. As in a workshop, the audience is kept small, to enable in-depth discussions. The conference is held over 5-days (instead of the usual 3-days) to allow such discussions. Each paper is discussed after it is presented. A transcript of the discussion is found at the end of each paper in these proceedings, giving important insights about the paper. Each session was assigned a 'notes taker', whose responsibility was to collect/transcribe the questions and answers during the session. After the conference, the original transcripts were distributed (via the Web) to the attendees and modifications that clarified the discussions were accepted.

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - Investigation of the structure and function of biological molecules through spectroscopic methods is a field rich in revealing, clever techniques and demanding experiments. It is most gratifying to see that the basic concepts are applied to more and more complex systems, making feasible the study of the behaviour of whole systems in relation to molecular disturbances. The analytical potential of spectroscopy and spectroscopic imaging enables species identification of bacteria and tissue recognition. Clear opportunities for in vivo applications become apparent in the medical field. The methods developed in biophysics start to generate spin-off in the direction of biotechnology, where in previous years we have seen this happen for biochemical techniques. New directions are manifest. Tools are being developed to investigate the behaviour of single molecules in interaction with their environment. Individual interactions can now be investigated and individual molecules in complexes can be visualized. Processes that were previously unobservable as a result of ensemble averaging can now be investigated on a single molecule level. Completely new information with regard to molecular behaviour is obtained in this way. The insights amaze us and the prospect that this development will continue is exciting. The 8th European Conference on the Spectroscopy of Biological Molecules is proud to have contributed to the dissemination of these new directions. This proceedings book is an appropriate reflection of the progress obtained so far in the spectroscopy of biological molecules.

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - This book, a selection of the papers presented at the 2nd World Congress for Electricity and Magnetism, provides state of the art information on applications of electricity and electromagnetic fields on living organisms, especially man.

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - Among the several modes of diagnostic testing for infections, serological (i.e. antibody determination) studies are still heavily used. Serodiagnosis of the Infectious Diseases examines this topic in a contemporary context, and in so doing utilizes serodiagnosis of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection as the study model. Major serological methods are reviewed, as is the chronological development of serodiagnosis for this infection. There are many important parallels which are applicable to the serodiagnosis of any infectious disease, and history reminds us of how these commonalities need to be reviewed, whether for existing, emerging or newly discovered infectious diseases. Serodiagnosis of the Infectious Diseases is a valuable introduction for infectious disease specialists, bacteriology experts, diagnostic laboratorians and medical students, and technologists taking the microbiology diagnostic methods course.

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Written in a provocative, witty, and highly accessible style, this is not only a splendid general introduction to the central questions of consciousness and brain science, but also an answer to some of them. The author -- noted Glaswegian chemist A.G. Cairns-Smith -- believes our feelings and sensations are not simply alternative descriptions of neural events but have themselves evolved and have physical effects in the brain as well as physical causes. Secrets of the Mind portrays a vision of the world as it may come to be seen by a future science. Sand, sea water, air, and the atoms from which such materials are made are now well understood by science, but the same can not be said of our personal feelings, our sensations and emotions. Science tells us that these too must be forms of quantum energy if they evolved, yet is only now beginning to explain how. 252 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -During the last twenty-five years quite remarkable relations between nonas sociative algebra and differential geometry have been discovered in our work. Such exotic structures of algebra as quasigroups and loops were obtained from purely geometric structures such as affinely connected spaces. The notion ofodule was introduced as a fundamental algebraic invariant of differential geometry. For any space with an affine connection loopuscular, odular and geoodular structures (partial smooth algebras of a special kind) were introduced and studied. As it happened, the natural geoodular structure of an affinely connected space al lows us to reconstruct this space in a unique way. Moreover, any smooth ab stractly given geoodular structure generates in a unique manner an affinely con nected space with the natural geoodular structure isomorphic to the initial one. The above said means that any affinely connected (in particular, Riemannian) space can be treated as a purely algebraic structure equipped with smoothness. Numerous habitual geometric properties may be expressed in the language of geoodular structures by means of algebraic identities, etc. Our treatment has led us to the purely algebraic concept of affinely connected (in particular, Riemannian) spaces; for example, one can consider a discrete, or, even, finite space with affine connection (in the form ofgeoodular structure) which can be used in the old problem of discrete space-time in relativity, essential for the quantum space-time theory. 276 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Harmonic analysis and probability have long enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship that has been rich and fruitful. This monograph, aimed at researchers and students in these fields, explores several aspects of this relationship. The primary focus of the text is the nontangential maximal function and the area function of a harmonic function and their probabilistic analogues in martingale theory. The text first gives the requisite background material from harmonic analysis and discusses known results concerning the nontangential maximal function and area function, as well as the central and essential role these have played in the development of the field.The book next discusses further refinements of traditional results: among these are sharp good-lambda inequalities and laws of the iterated logarithm involving nontangential maximal functions and area functions. Many applications of these results are given. Throughout, the constant interplay between probability and harmonic analysis is emphasized and explained. The text contains some new and many recent results combined in a coherent presentation. 209 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -In social science research, differences among groups or changes over time are a common focus of study. While means and variances are typically the basis for statistical methods used in this research, the underlying social theory often implies properties of distributions that are not well captured by these summary measures. Examples include the current controversies regarding growing inequality in earnings, racial diferences in test scores, socio-economic correlates of birth outcomes, and the impact of smoking on survival and health. The distributional differences that animate the debates in these fields are complex. They comprise the usual mean-shifts and changes in variance, but also more subtle comparisons of changes in the upper and lower tails of distributions. Survey and census data on such attributes contain a wealth of distributional information, but traditional methods of data analysis leave much of this information untapped. In this monograph, we present methods for full comparative distributional analysis. The methods are based on the relative distribution, a nonparametric complete summary of the information required for scale--invariant comparisons between two distributions. The relative distribution provides a general integrated framework for analysis. It offers a graphical component that simplifies exploratory data analysis and display, a statistically valid basis for the development of hypothesis-driven summary measures, and the potential for decomposition that enables one to examine complex hypotheses regarding the origins of distributional changes within and between groups. The monograph is written for data analysts and those interested in measurement, and it can serve as a textbook for a course on distributional methods. The presentation is application oriented, 284 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This text reflects the revised WHO classification and terminology. One major change is in the introduction of a new category: papillary urothelial neoplasm of low malignant potential. Many of the tumours previously designated as papillary transitional cell carcinoma, grade I now fall into that category. Another major change is in the designation of flat lesions, and this includes a definition of carcinoma in situ. Furthermore, a number of variant forms of urothelials carcinomas are included as well as new entities not recognized when the 1st edition was issued. 120 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -In the first part, this book analyzes the knowledge discovery process in order to understand the relations between knowledge discovery steps and focusing. The part devoted to the development of focusing solutions opens with an analysis of the state of the art, then introduces the relevant techniques, and finally culminates in implementing a unified approach as a generic sampling algorithm, which is then integrated into a commercial data mining system. The last part evaluates specific focusing solutions in various application domains. The book provides various appendicies enhancing easy accessibility.The book presents a comprehensive introduction to focusing in the context of data mining and knowledge discovery. It is written for researchers and advanced students, as well as for professionals applying data mining and knowledge discovery techniques in practice. 332 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Celebrating the founding of the Flavor Subdivision of the Agriculture and Food Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society, this book provides an overview of progress made during the past 30-40 years in various aspects of flavor chemistry as seen by internationally renowned scientists in the forefront of their respective fields. In addition, it presents up-to-date findings in the areas of flavor chemistry, analytical methods, thermally produced flavors and precursors, enzymatically produced flavors and precursors, and sensory methods and results. 452 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This volume contains the papers presented at the Second International and - terdisciplinary Conference on Modeling and Using Context (CONTEXT'99), held in Trento (Italy) from 9 to 11 September 1999. CONTEXT'99 is the second in the CONTEXT series. The rst was held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in 1997. The CONTEXT conference series is meant to provide an interdisciplinary - rum where researchers can exchange ideas, methodologies, and results on c- text, and is increasingly becoming an important reference for all people doing research on context. This is testi ed by the larger number of research areas that are represented at CONTEXT'99 (in particular, Philosophy and Cognitive Psychology were not signi cantly present at the rst conference), and by the number and quality of submitted papers. Speci cally, we received 118 papers, mostly of good or excellent quality. Among them, 33 (28%) have been accepted as full papers, and 21 as short papers. We think it is fair to say that the 54 papers collected in this volume provide a signi cant picture of the international research on context currently going on. The notion of context plays an important role in many areas, both theoretical and applied, such as Formal Logic, Arti cial Intelligence, Philosophy, Pragm- ics, Computational Linguistics, Computer Science, Cognitive Psychology. 548 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This volume contains the contributions presented at the International Workshop on Current Trends in Applied Formal Methods organized October 7-9, 1998, in Boppard, Germany. The main objective of the workshop was to draw a map of the key issues facing the practical application of formal methods in industry. This appears to be particularly timely with safety and security issues becoming a real obstacle to industrial software and hardware development. As a consequence, almost all major companies have now set up departments or groups to work with formal methods and many European countries face a severe labour shortage in this new field. Tony Hoare's prediction of the art of software (and hardware) development becoming a proper engineering science with its own body of tools and techniques is now becoming a reality. So the focus of this application oriented workshop was not so much on spe cial academic topics but rather on the many practical aspects of this emerging new technology: verification and validation, and tool support and integration into the software life-cycle. By evaluating the state of the art with respect to industrial applications a discussion emerged among scientists, practising engi neers, and members of regulatory and funding agencies about future needs and developments. This discussion lead to roadmaps with respect to the future of this field, to tool support, and potential application areas and promising market segments. The contributions of the participants from industry as well as from the respective national security bureaus were particularly valuable and highly appreciated. 396 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The Conference on Spatial Information Theory - COSIT - grew out of a series of workshops / NATO Advanced Study Institutes / NSF specialist meetings concerned with cognitive and applied aspects of representing large-scale space, particularly geographic space. In these meetings, the need for a well-founded theory of spatial information processing was identified. The COSIT conference series was established in 1993 as a biennial interdisciplinary European conference on the representation and processing of information about large-scale space, after a successful international conference on the topic had been organized by Andrew Frank et al. in Pisa, Italy, in 1992 (frequently referred to as 'COSIT zero'). After two successful European conferences with strong North-American participation (COSIT '93, held on the Island of Elba, Italy; COSIT '95, held in Semmering, Austria), the conference became a truly international enterprise when COSIT '97 was held in the Laurel Highlands, Pennsylvania, USA. COSIT '99 will take place in Stade, Germany. All aspects of large-scale space, i. e. spaces too large to be seen from a single vantage point, are addressed in the COSIT conferences. These include spaces of geographic scale, as well as smaller spaces in which humans, animals, or autonomous robots have to find their way around. Spatial information theory also deals with the description of objects, processes, or events in spatial environments and it forms the foundation for the construction of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and for spatial information and communication system design in general. 500 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Artificial Intelligence is one of the most fascinating and unusual areas of academic study to have emerged this century. For some, AI is a true scientific discipline, that has made important and fundamental contributions to the use of computation for our understanding of nature and phenomena of the human mind; for others, AI is the black art of computer science.Artificial Intelligence Today provides a showcase for the field of AI as it stands today. The editors invited contributions both from traditional subfields of AI, such as theorem proving, as well as from subfields that have emerged more recently, such as agents, AI and the Internet, or synthetic actors. The papers themselves are a mixture of more specialized research papers and authorative survey papers.The secondary purpose of this book is to celebrate Springer-Verlag's Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence series. 504 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book comprises a selection of papers that were first presented at VSS98 (5th International Workshop on Variable Structure Systems) held in Sarasota, Florida. This workshop was the fifth in a series of VSS international workshops, and the first to be held in the United States. Work presented herein on theoretical developments and applications on VSS and Sliding Mode, reflects how trends have advanced beyond the original ideas that are now well documented in a number of books and research monographs. In particular, the concepts of Sliding Sector and Second Order Sliding Mode introduced in this volume, will stimulate discussions and invite further extensions. Also, the focus on Sampled Data systems represents a positive trend towards practical industrial implementations of sliding mode controllers. 400 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This volume contains papers selected for presentation during the 24th Interna tional Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science held on September 6-10, 1999 in Szklarska Por^ba, Poland. The symposium, organized alternately in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland, focuses on theoretical aspects and mathematical foundations of computer science. The scientific program of the symposium consists of five invited talks given by Martin Dyer, Dexter Kozen, Giovanni Manzini, Sergio Rajsbaum, and Mads Tofte, and 37 accepted papers chosen out of 68 submissions. The volume contains all accepted contributed papers, and three invited papers. The contributed papers have been selected for presentation based on their scientific quality, novelty, and interest for the general audience of MFCS par ticipants. Each paper has been reviewed by at least three independent referees - PC members and/or sub-referees appointed by them. The papers were se lected for presentation during a fully electronic virtual meeting of the program committee on May 7, 1999. The virtual PC meeting was supported by software written by Artur Zgoda, Ph.D. student at the University of Wroclaw. The entire communication and access to quite a sensitive database at PC headquarters in Wroclaw was secured by cryptographic protocols based on technology of certificates. 476 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Many buildings fail to perform adequately, causing illness and productivity loss among the inhabitants. The growing impact of this problem on people and property values - and the increasing litigation to which it gives rise - clearly reveals the limitations in and piecemeal character of the current education of building and health professionals in addressing the relationship between a building and its occupants. Education and Training in Indoor Air Sciences introduces examples of existing educational programs that seek to bridge the gap between health and building sciences. The contributors - selected among architects, engineers, clinicians, physicists, psychologists and policymakers - discuss the design of a core curriculum for all those holding a degree within building design, construction, operation and maintenance, investigation, and all occupational / environmental health and general practitioners. The book also examines the obstacles to such a curriculum and ways to overcome them. 268 pp. Englisch.