Springer us nov 2003 (81 resultados)

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - This text presents basic implementation strategies for arithmetic datapath designs and methodologies utilized in the digital system. The author implements various datapath designs for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Theory is presented to illustrate and explain why certain designs are chosen. Each implementation is discussed in terms of design choices and how particular theory is invoked in the hardware. Along with the theory that emphasizes the design in question, Verilog modules are presented for understanding the basic ideas that accompany each design. Structural models are implemented to guarantee correct synthesis and for incorporation into VLSI schematic-capture programs.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - Genetic Programming Theory and Practice explores the emerging interaction between theory and practice in the cutting-edge, machine learning method of Genetic Programming (GP). The material contained in this contributed volume was developed from a workshop at the University of Michigan's Center for the Study of Complex Systems where an international group of genetic programming theorists and practitioners met to examine how GP theory informs practice and how GP practice impacts GP theory. The contributions cover the full spectrum of this relationship and are written by leading GP theorists from major universities, as well as active practitioners from leading industries and businesses. Chapters include such topics as John Koza's development of human-competitive electronic circuit designs; David Goldberg's application of 'competent GA' methodology to GP; Jason Daida's discovery of a new set of factors underlying the dynamics of GP starting from applied research; and Stephen Freeland's essay on the lessons of biology for GP and the potential impact of GP on evolutionary theory.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. Neuware - From the beginning Integrated Photonics introduces numerical techniques for studying non-analytic structures. Most chapters have numerical problems designed for solution using a computational program such as Matlab or Mathematica. An entire chapter is devoted to one of the numeric simulation techniques being used in optoelectronic design (the Beam Propagation Method), and provides opportunity for students to explore some novel optical structures without too much effort. Small pieces of code are supplied where appropriate to get the reader started on the numeric work. Integrated Photonics is designed for the senior/first year graduate student, and requires a basic familiarity with electromagnetic waves, and the ability to solve differential equations with boundary conditions.…

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -Practically every radiologist would benefit from an all-encompassing guide to malpractice issues in radiology. Dr. Ronald Eisenberg, a highly respected author in the field, has put together a comprehensive reference to provide radiologists with an introduction to malpractice issues and a basic understanding of their relationships with government regulatory agencies and HMOs. This softcover book will detail the mechanics of a lawsuit, how radiologists can become the object of a malpractice action, and what they can do to minimize potential exposure.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 284 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -Environmental Systems Engineering and Economics emphasizes the application of optimization, economics, and systems engineering to problems in environmental resources management. This senior level/graduate textbook introduces optimization theory and algorithms that have been successful in resolving water quality and groundwater management problems. Both linear programming and nonlinear optimization are presented. Multiobjective optimization and the linked simulation-optimization (LSO) methodology are also introduced. The basic principles of economics and engineering economics are also discussed to provide a framework for economic decision making. This text contains numerous example problems. Case studies are presented that address water resources management issues in the north China plain, the control of saltwater intrusion in Jakarta, Indonesia, and groundwater resources management in the Yun Lin basin, Taiwan.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 488 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -'Political Economy of Transition and Development' collects the proceedings of an international conference that brought the leading thinkers in this field to the Center for European Integration Studies of the University of Bonn in May, 2002. The contributions analyze the various interactions between institutions, policy choices, economic developments, and political outcomes in transition and developing countries. The first five chapters give a relatively broad assessment of the various reform paths and outcomes in the transition and developing countries. The remaining eight chapters proceed to analyze important aspects of transition such as voting behavior, political-regime choice, corruption, social capital, growth and inequality, and EU enlargement. The resulting volume thus combines a bird's eye perspective with a relatively narrow focus on selected key issues pertaining to the ongoing transition process in Central and Eastern Europe. 300 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Design and Test of Integrated Inductors for RF Applications is intended for engineers who are starting out in the design of integrated inductors, this due to the fact that it describes the whole design flow, basic selection of the geometry, optimisation of the quality by redesigning the geometry, measurement and de-embedding and characterisation. Secondly it will help the designer with much experience in this field, this due to the fact that, based on empirical data, some design rules that have been widely used by the design community have been proved to be really conservative and breaking them leads up to higher quality designs. 212 pp. Englisch. …

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Thin-Film Capacitors for Packaged Electronics deals with the capacitors of a wanted kind, still needed and capable of keeping pace with the demands posed by ever greater levels of integration. It spans a wide range of topics, from materials properties to limits of what's the best one can achieve in capacitor properties to process modeling to application examples. Some of the topics covered are the following: -Novel insights into fundamental relationships between dielectric constant and the breakdown field of materials and related capacitance density and breakdown voltage of capacitor structures, -Electrical characterization techniques for a wide range of frequencies (1 kHz to 20 GHz),-Process modeling to determine stable operating points, -Prevention of metal (Cu) diffusion into the dielectric, -Measurements and modeling of the dielectric micro-roughness. 180 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Biometrics such as fingerprint, face, gait, iris, voice and signature, recognizes one's identity using his/her physiological or behavioral characteristics. Among these biometric signs, fingerprint has been researched the longest period of time, and shows the most promising future in real-world applications. However, because of the complex distortions among the different impressions of the same finger, fingerprint recognition is still a challenging problem. Computational Algorithms for Fingerprint Recognition presents an entire range of novel computational algorithms for fingerprint recognition. These include feature extraction, indexing, matching, classification, and performance prediction/validation methods, which have been compared with state-of-art algorithms and found to be effective and efficient on real-world data. All the algorithms have been evaluated on NIST-4 database from National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Specific algorithms addressed include:-Learned template based minutiae extraction algorithm, -Triplets of minutiae based fingerprint indexing algorithm, -Genetic algorithm based fingerprint matching algorithm, -Genetic programming based feature learning algorithm for fingerprint classification, -Comparison of classification and indexing based approaches for identification, -Fundamental fingerprint matching performance prediction analysis and its validation.Computational Algorithms for Fingerprint Recognition is designed for a professional audience composed of researchers and practitioners in industry. This book is also suitable as a secondary text for graduate-level students in computer science and engineering. 220 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs) have become the key implementation medium for the vast majority of digital circuits designed today. While the highest-volume devices are still built with full-fabrication rather than field programmability, the trend towards ever fewer ASICs and more FPGAs is clear. This makes the field of PLD architecture ever more important, as there is stronger demand for faster, smaller, cheaper and lower-power programmable logic. PLDs are 90% routing and 10% logic. This book focuses on that 90% that is the programmable routing: the manner in which the programmable wires are connected and the circuit design of the programmable switches themselves. Anyone seeking to understand the design of an FPGA needs to become lit erate in the complexities of programmable routing architecture. This book builds on the state-of-the-art of programmable interconnect by providing new methods of investigating and measuring interconnect structures, as well as new programmable switch basic circuits. The early portion of this book provides an excellent survey of interconnec tion structures and circuits as they exist today. Lemieux and Lewis then provide a new way to design sparse crossbars as they are used in PLDs, and show that the method works with an empirical validation. This is one of a few routing architecture works that employ analytical methods to deal with the routing archi tecture design. The analysis permits interesting insights not typically possible with the standard empirical approach. 232 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Chemical Vapor Deposition Polymerization - The Growth and Properties of Parylene Thin Films is intended to be valuable to both users and researchers of parylene thin films. It should be particularly useful for those setting up and characterizing their first research deposition system. It provides a good picture of the deposition process and equipment, as well as information on system-to-system variations that is important to consider when designing a deposition system or making modifications to an existing one. Also included are methods to characterizae a deposition system's pumping properties as well as monitor the deposition process via mass spectrometry. There are many references that will lead the reader to further information on the topic being discussed. This text should serve as a useful reference source and handbook for scientists and engineers interested in depositing high quality parylene thin films. 124 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Lagrange and penalty function methods provide a powerful approach, both as a theoretical tool and a computational vehicle, for the study of constrained optimization problems. However, for a nonconvex constrained optimization problem, the classical Lagrange primal-dual method may fail to find a mini mum as a zero duality gap is not always guaranteed. A large penalty parameter is, in general, required for classical quadratic penalty functions in order that minima of penalty problems are a good approximation to those of the original constrained optimization problems. It is well-known that penaity functions with too large parameters cause an obstacle for numerical implementation. Thus the question arises how to generalize classical Lagrange and penalty functions, in order to obtain an appropriate scheme for reducing constrained optimiza tion problems to unconstrained ones that will be suitable for sufficiently broad classes of optimization problems from both the theoretical and computational viewpoints. Some approaches for such a scheme are studied in this book. One of them is as follows: an unconstrained problem is constructed, where the objective function is a convolution of the objective and constraint functions of the original problem. While a linear convolution leads to a classical Lagrange function, different kinds of nonlinear convolutions lead to interesting generalizations. We shall call functions that appear as a convolution of the objective function and the constraint functions, Lagrange-type functions. 304 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Synchronizing E-Security is a critical investigation and empirical analysis of studies conducted among companies that support electronic commerce transactions in both advanced and developing economies. This book presents insights into the validity and credibility of current risk assessment methods that support electronic transactions in the global economy. Synchronizing E-Security focuses on a number of case studies of IT companies, within selected countries in West Africa, Europe, Asia and the United States. The foundation of this work is based on previous studies by Williams G., Avudzivi P.V (Hawaii 2002) on the retrospective view of information security management and the impact of tele-banking on the end-user. 124 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Over the last decade, the considerable progress made in biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics and neuropharmacology has revealed some ofthe intimate mechanisms ofthe neurodegenerative disorders. There is increasing evidence linking genetic defects affecting mitochondria to Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Huntington's disease and some other neurological disorders. Advances in knowledge are fueled through improved animal models that use mitochondrial toxins, excitotoxins, and transgenic animals. Therapeutic studies in these models have strengthened the possibility for effective treatments in man. By defining the pathomechanisms, we hope to be in the position to prevent cell death by protecting neurons. Indeed serious preclinical and clinical research is going on in the field of neuroprotection in stroke, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, demyelinating disorders and dementia. Based on these scientific ideas, the Symposium in honour of Professor Abel Lajtha was organized by the European Society for ClinicalNeuropharmacology(ESCNP) and the Danube Symposium for Neurological Sciences in Budapest, Hungary, October 24-25, 2002. Professor Lajtha was born in Budapest in 1922 and his home town is an ideal venue for strengthening the bonds between Western and Eastern European Neuroscientists. Professor Peter Riederer (Wurzburg) held the 2002 special 'Dezso Miskolczy Memorial Lecture' in Abel Lajtha's Honour. Thanks are due to the invited speakersofthis Symposium for their excellentcontribution. Laszlo Vecsei vii CONTENTS Advances in Neuroprotection Research for Neurodegenerative Diseases 1 Mario E. Gotz and Peter Riederer Neurotransmitter Release in Experimental Stroke Models: The Role of Glutamate-GABA Interaction 21 Laszlo G. Harsing, Jr. 210 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Neural Stem Cells: Development and Transplantation provides comprehensive, critical and insightful reviews by leading experts in this exciting field of research. This volume will provide the latest data on neural stem cell properties and their therapeutic applications. This volume will be particularly useful for students, basic scientists, and clinicians in the academic or industrial sectors who have an interest in understanding neural development and its application to repairing the nervous system. 496 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Building Scalable Network Services: Theory and Practice is on building scalable network services on the Internet or in a network service provider's network. The focus is on network services that are provided through the use of a set of servers. The authors present a tiered scalable network service model and evaluate various services within this architecture. The service model simplifies design tasks by implementing only the most basic functionalities at lower tiers where the need for scalability dominates functionality. The book includes a number of theoretical results that are practical and applicable to real networks, such as building network-wide measurement, monitoring services, and strategies for building better P2P networks. Various issues in scalable system design and placement algorithms for service nodes are discussed. Using existing network services as well as potentially new but useful services as examples, the authors formalize the problem of placing service nodes and provide practical solutions for them. 162 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Aquatic ecosystem assessment is a rapidly developing field, and one of the newer approaches to assessing the condition of rivers and lakes is the Reference Condition Approach. This is a significant advancement in biomonitoring because it solves the problem of trying to locate nearby control or reference sites when studying an ecosystem that may be degraded, a problem that bedevils traditional approaches. Rather than using upstream reference sites in a river system or next-bay-over reference sites in a lake, an array of ecologically similar, least-exposed to stress sites scattered throughout a catchment or region is used. Once the reference condition has been established, any site suspected of being impacted can be assessed by comparison to the reference sites, and its status determined. The Reference Condition database, once formed, can be used repeatedly. 184 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Environmental Systems Engineering and Economics emphasizes the application of optimization, economics, and systems engineering to problems in environmental resources management. This senior level/graduate textbook introduces optimization theory and algorithms that have been successful in resolving water quality and groundwater management problems. Both linear programming and nonlinear optimization are presented. Multiobjective optimization and the linked simulation-optimization (LSO) methodology are also introduced. The basic principles of economics and engineering economics are also discussed to provide a framework for economic decision making. This text contains numerous example problems. Case studies are presented that address water resources management issues in the north China plain, the control of saltwater intrusion in Jakarta, Indonesia, and groundwater resources management in the Yun Lin basin, Taiwan. 488 pp. Englisch.…

Taschenbuch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Ornithine Transcarbamylase: Basic Science and Clinical Considerations, written by a leading expert on OTC, for the first time assembles and analyzes more than 40 years of basic science and clinical research. It will be the definitive resource on the topic for pediatricians, geneticists, and internists who care for patients with OTC deficiency, as well as for basic scientists and genetic researchers who study the urea cycle in mammals and the arginine biosynthetic pathway in bacteria and fungi. 424 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -Political Economy of Transition and Development collects the proceedings of an international conference that brought the leading thinkers in this field to the Center for European Integration Studies of the University of Bonn in May, 2002. The contributions analyze the various interactions between institutions, policy choices, economic developments, and political outcomes in transition and developing countries. The first five chapters give a relatively broad assessment of the various reform paths and outcomes in the transition and developing countries. The remaining eight chapters proceed to analyze important aspects of transition such as voting behavior, political-regime choice, corruption, social capital, growth and inequality, and EU enlargement. The resulting volume thus combines a bird's eye perspective with a relatively narrow focus on selected key issues pertaining to the ongoing transition process in Central and Eastern Europe.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 300 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -Is the East Asian growth record replicable today This book answers: yes. It places the common East Asian theme in the theoretic context of product cycles, globalization and convergence and the historical perspective of the 'German Miracle' after World War II, also the more recent Irish growth; it identifies the effective policies for sustained, rapid growth by structured comparisons among different economies; it evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the alternative policy packages of Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, in the light of such recent events like global trend for liberalization, and the Crises of 1997 and 2001.Economic Development in a Globalized Environment also scrutinizes the major debates in development economics, using documented cases, and analytic reasoning for support.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 416 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs) have become the key implementation medium for the vast majority of digital circuits designed today. While the highest-volume devices are still built with full-fabrication rather than field programmability, the trend towards ever fewer ASICs and more FPGAs is clear. This makes the field of PLD architecture ever more important, as there is stronger demand for faster, smaller, cheaper and lower-power programmable logic. PLDs are 90% routing and 10% logic. This book focuses on that 90% that is the programmable routing: the manner in which the programmable wires are connected and the circuit design of the programmable switches themselves. Anyone seeking to understand the design of an FPGA needs to become lit erate in the complexities of programmable routing architecture. This book builds on the state-of-the-art of programmable interconnect by providing new methods of investigating and measuring interconnect structures, as well as new programmable switch basic circuits. The early portion of this book provides an excellent survey of interconnec tion structures and circuits as they exist today. Lemieux and Lewis then provide a new way to design sparse crossbars as they are used in PLDs, and show that the method works with an empirical validation. This is one of a few routing architecture works that employ analytical methods to deal with the routing archi tecture design. The analysis permits interesting insights not typically possible with the standard empirical approach.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 232 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -Building Scalable Network Services: Theory and Practice is on building scalable network services on the Internet or in a network service provider's network. The focus is on network services that are provided through the use of a set of servers. The authors present a tiered scalable network service model and evaluate various services within this architecture. The service model simplifies design tasks by implementing only the most basic functionalities at lower tiers where the need for scalability dominates functionality. The book includes a number of theoretical results that are practical and applicable to real networks, such as building network-wide measurement, monitoring services, and strategies for building better P2P networks. Various issues in scalable system design and placement algorithms for service nodes are discussed. Using existing network services as well as potentially new but useful services as examples, the authors formalize the problem of placing service nodes and provide practical solutions for them. 162 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -1. DESIGN FLOW Integrated circuit (IC) complexity is steadily increasing. ICs incorporating hundreds of millions of transistors, mega-bit memories, complicated pipelined structures, etc., are now in high demand. For example, Intel Itanium II processor contains more than 200 million transistors, including a 3 MB third level cache. A billion transistor IC was said to be ¿imminently doable¿ by Intel fellow J. Crawford at Microprocessor Forum in October 2002 [40]. Obviously, designing such complex circuits poses real challenges to engineers. Certainly, no relief comes from the competitive marketplace, with increasing demands for a very narrow window of time (time-to-market) in engineering a ready product. Therefore, a systematic and well-structured approach to designing ICs is a must. Although there are no widely adhered standards for a design flow, most companies have their own established practices, which they follow closely for in-house design processes. In general, however, a typical product cycle includes few milestones. An idea for a new product starts usually from an - depth market analysis of customer needs. Once a window of opportunity is found, product requirements are carefully specified. Ideally, these parameters would not change during the design process. In practice, initial phases of preparing a design specification are susceptible to potential errors, as it is very difficult to grasp all the details in a complex design.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 236 pp. Englisch. …

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -Chemical Vapor Deposition Polymerization - The Growth and Properties of Parylene Thin Films is intended to be valuable to both users and researchers of parylene thin films. It should be particularly useful for those setting up and characterizing their first research deposition system. It provides a good picture of the deposition process and equipment, as well as information on system-to-system variations that is important to consider when designing a deposition system or making modifications to an existing one. Also included are methods to characterizae a deposition system's pumping properties as well as monitor the deposition process via mass spectrometry. There are many references that will lead the reader to further information on the topic being discussed. This text should serve as a useful reference source and handbook for scientists and engineers interested in depositing high quality parylene thin films.Springer-Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 124 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -Synchronizing E-Security is a critical investigation and empirical analysis of studies conducted among companies that support electronic commerce transactions in both advanced and developing economies. This book presents insights into the validity and credibility of current risk assessment methods that support electronic transactions in the global economy. Synchronizing E-Security focuses on a number of case studies of IT companies, within selected countries in West Africa, Europe, Asia and the United States. The foundation of this work is based on previous studies by Williams G., Avudzivi P.V (Hawaii 2002) on the retrospective view of information security management and the impact of tele-banking on the end-user.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 124 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -Neural Stem Cells: Development and Transplantation provides comprehensive, critical and insightful reviews by leading experts in this exciting field of research. This volume will provide the latest data on neural stem cell properties and their therapeutic applications. This volume will be particularly useful for students, basic scientists, and clinicians in the academic or industrial sectors who have an interest in understanding neural development and its application to repairing the nervous system.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 496 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -The physiological genomics of the cardiovascular system studies the relationship between gene and physiological (dys)function. It is a rapidly developing area of research and distinguishes itself from other areas of molecular medicine by its highly integrative nature. In this multi disciplinarian area of the physiological sciences, there is interaction between gene structure and physiological cardiovascular function as well as interactions between the different organs and their physiological compartments. The mouse has played a central role in the study of genomics due to the detailed knowledge of the mouse genome and the wide availability of genetically modified mice. In the past, the mouse had mainly been used in the area of immunology and molecular biology, and physiological interest in the mouse was scarce. As more insight has come into the structural genomics of the mouse, however, it has become increasingly important to understand the relation between gene and physiological function. With this in mind we have been organizing the Amsterdam Mouse Symposia to bring together different disciplines interested in the molecular basis of cardiovascular function (see J. of Clinical and Exp. Pharmacology and rd Physiology (2002) 29:A69-AI02 for the proceedings of the 3 Amsterdam Mouse Symposium and Basic Research in Cardiology (2000) 95:492-535 for nd the proceedings of the 2 symposium).Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 408 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -Design and Test of Integrated Inductors for RF Applications is intended for engineers who are starting out in the design of integrated inductors, this due to the fact that it describes the whole design flow, basic selection of the geometry, optimisation of the quality by redesigning the geometry, measurement and de-embedding and characterisation. Secondly it will help the designer with much experience in this field, this due to the fact that, based on empirical data, some design rules that have been widely used by the design community have been proved to be really conservative and breaking them leads up to higher quality designs.Springer-Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 212 pp. Englisch.…

Buch. Condición: Neu. This item is printed on demand - Print on Demand Titel. Neuware -Aquatic ecosystem assessment is a rapidly developing field, and one of the newer approaches to assessing the condition of rivers and lakes is the Reference Condition Approach. This is a significant advancement in biomonitoring because it solves the problem of trying to locate nearby control or reference sites when studying an ecosystem that may be degraded, a problem that bedevils traditional approaches. Rather than using upstream reference sites in a river system or next-bay-over reference sites in a lake, an array of ecologically similar, least-exposed to stress sites scattered throughout a catchment or region is used. Once the reference condition has been established, any site suspected of being impacted can be assessed by comparison to the reference sites, and its status determined. The Reference Condition database, once formed, can be used repeatedly.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 184 pp. Englisch.…