Search results for ""Imperial College Press""

This invaluable book provides an introduction to space science. It brings together the various space science disciplines in one volume, and will benefit a wide audience, particularly students starting their graduate studies. The text presents a unique outlook, which will encourage students to think in broad terms across the whole range of space science, from the Earth's climate system to cosmology. There are also chapters describing basic techniques necessary to progress in space science research.

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IC-SEC 2002 serves as a forum for engineers and scientists who are involved in the use of high performance computers, advanced numerical strategies, computational methods and simulation in various scientific and engineering disciplines. The conference creates a platform for presenting and discussing the latest trends and findings about the state of the art in their particular field(s) of interest. IC-SEC also provides a forum for the interdisciplinary blending of computational efforts in various diversified areas of science, such as biology, chemistry, physics and materials science, as well as all branches of engineering. The proceedings cover a broad range of topics and an application area which involves modelling and simulation work using high performance computers.

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The use of CeO2-based materials in catalysis has attracted considerable attention in recent years, particularly in applications like environmental catalysis, where ceria has shown great potential. This book critically reviews the most recent advances in the field, with the focus on both fundamental and applied issues. The first few chapters cover structural and chemical properties of ceria and related materials, i.e. phase stability, reduction behaviour, synthesis, interaction with probe molecules (CO, O2, NO), and metal-support interaction — all presented from the viewpoint of catalytic applications. The use of computational techniques and ceria surfaces and films for model catalytic studies are also reviewed. The second part of the book provides a critical evaluation of the role of ceria in the most important catalytic processes: three-way catalysis, catalytic wet oxidation and fluid catalytic cracking. Other topics include oxidation-combustion catalysts, electrocatalysis and the use of cerium catalysts/additives in diesel soot abatement technology.

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Click here for an updated 2nd Edition.Enjoy Writing Your Science Thesis or Dissertation! is a complete guide to good dissertation and thesis writing. It is written in an accessible style with cartoons and real-life anecdotes to liven up the text. It outlines the rules and conventions of scientific writing — particularly for dissertations and theses — and gives the reader practical advice about planning, writing, editing, presenting, and submitting a successful dissertation or thesis. Enjoy Writing Your Science Thesis or Dissertation! can be used as either a guide from day one of the degree course or as a quick reference life-jacket when deadlines are looming.

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Every day, headlines emphasise the impact that technology has on the manipulation of life. We all want to live longer, healthier, happier lives. To live at all costs and maintain life at all costs has become a popular aim. This book examines those costs; it probes the consequences of putting one's faith in science. It explores the belief that with science comes certainty. The use and misuse of implants, transplants, cloning, genetic manipulation, health care resources, birth and death control are debated in terms of the complex scientific, economic and ethical issues involved.

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Every day, headlines emphasise the impact that technology has on the manipulation of life. We all want to live longer, healthier, happier lives. To live at all costs and maintain life at all costs has become a popular aim. This book examines those costs; it probes the consequences of putting one's faith in science. It explores the belief that with science comes certainty. The use and misuse of implants, transplants, cloning, genetic manipulation, health care resources, birth and death control are debated in terms of the complex scientific, economic and ethical issues involved.

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Face recognition is a task that the human vision system seems to perform almost effortlessly, yet the goal of building computer-based systems with comparable capabilities has proven to be difficult. The task implicitly requires the ability to locate and track faces through often complex and dynamic scenes. Recognition is difficult because of variations in factors such as lighting conditions, viewpoint, body movement and facial expression. Although evidence from psychophysical and neurobiological experiments provides intriguing insights into how we might code and recognise faces, its bearings on computational and engineering solutions are far from clear. The study of face recognition has had an almost unique impact on computer vision and machine learning research at large. It raises many challenging issues and provides a good vehicle for examining some difficult problems in vision and learning. Many of the issues raised are relevant to object recognition in general.This book describes the latest models and algorithms that are capable of performing face recognition in a dynamic setting. The key question is how to design computer vision and machine learning algorithms that can operate robustly and quickly under poorly controlled and changing conditions. Consideration of face recognition as a problem in dynamic vision is perhaps both novel and important. The algorithms described have numerous potential applications in areas such as visual surveillance, verification, access control, video-conferencing, multimedia and visually mediated interaction.The book will be of special interest to researchers and academics involved in machine vision, visual recognition and machine learning. It should also be of interest to industrial research scientists and managers keen to exploit this emerging technology and develop automated face and human recognition systems. It is also useful to postgraduate students studying computer science, electronic engineering, information or systems engineering, and cognitive psychology.

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Efforts to reform healthcare systems around the globe are proliferating rapidly. No country is immune from the two fundamental pressures that are driving change: cost and access. Every system is experimenting with measures designed to contain costs while simultaneously trying to determine how best to resolve the question of who should be eligible for what services under what conditions.In the midst of these experiments, serious concerns about quality are being raised. Are efforts to contain costs leading to practices which have a detrimental impact on quality? What, in fact, is “quality” in the world of healthcare? How should it be measured? And how can it be improved? These questions are on the cutting edge of debates about the management of healthcare in the future.This book examines these questions in detail by combining chapters outlining the basic issues with others describing state-of-the-art efforts to measure and manage quality more effectively. The result is an up-to-date compendium of issues and experiences presented by leading researchers and practitioners which should be of interest to healthcare managers and policy makers as well as to students and researchers in the field.

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Spheromaks are easily formed, self-organized magnetized plasma configurations that have intrigued plasma physicists for over two decades. Sometimes called magnetic vortices, magnetic smoke rings, or plasmoids, spheromaks first attracted attention as a possible controlled thermonuclear plasma confinement scheme, but are now known to have many other applications.This book begins with a review of the basic concepts of magnetohydrodynamics and toroidal magnetic configurations, then provides a detailed exposition of the 3D topological concepts underlying spheromak physics, namely magnetic helicity, Taylor relaxation, force-free equilibria, and tilt stability. It then examines spheromak formation techniques, driven and isolated configurations, dynamo concepts, practical experimental issues, diagnostics, and a number of applications. The book concludes by showing how spheromak ideas are closely related to the physics of solar prominences and interplanetary magnetic clouds.

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This volume provides a general picture of the current trends in the area of automatic control, with particular emphasis on practical problems in the mechanical field. For this reason, besides theoretical contributions, it presents selected lectures on recent developments interesting from an industrial point of view, such as automotive, robotics, motion control, and electrical drives.

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Interviews conducted with Eric Scerri at the Chemical Heritage Foundation on the Periodic Table Part 1Interviews conducted with Eric Scerri at the Chemical Heritage Foundation on the Periodic Table Part 2This book contains key articles by Eric Scerri, the leading authority on the history and philosophy of the periodic table of the elements and the author of a best-selling book on the subject. The articles explore a range of topics such as the historical evolution of the periodic system as well as its philosophical status and its relationship to modern quantum physics. This volume contains some in-depth research papers from journals in history and philosophy of science, as well as quantum chemistry. Other articles are from more accessible magazines like American Scientist. The author has also provided an extensive new introduction in order to integrate this work covering a period of two decades. This must-have publication is completely unique as there is nothing of this form currently available on the market.

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This book is a presentation of a qualitative theory of chemical bonding stressing the physical processes which occur on bond formation. It differs from most (if not all) other books in that it does not seek to “rationalize” the phenomena of bonding by a series of mnemonic rules. A principal feature is a unified and consistent treatment across all types of bonding in organic, physical and inorganic chemistry.

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This unique book explores the definition, sources and role of randomness. A joyful discussion with many non-mathematical and mathematical examples leads to the identification of three sources of randomness: randomness due to irreversibility which inhibits us from extracting whatever rules may underlie a process, randomness due to our inability to have infinite power (chaos), and randomness due to many interacting systems. Here, all sources are found to have something in common: infinity. The discussion then moves to the physical system (our universe). Through the quantum mechanical character of small scales, the second law of thermodynamics and chaos, randomness is shown to be an intrinsic property of nature — this is consistent with the three sources of randomness identified above. Finally, an explanation is given as to why rules and randomness cannot exist by themselves, but instead have to coexist. Many examples are presented, ranging from pure mathematical to natural and social processes, that clearly demonstrate how the combination of rules and randomness produces the world we live in.

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Latest Edition: Fundamentals of Tribology (3rd Edition)There are many occasions when quick solutions to problems in tribology are needed. For example, an understanding of the lubrication mechanism in a racing car engine has led to an improvement in performance. Why does a woman's face cream make her look younger for a time? Tribologists are frequently summoned in legal cases as expert witnesses after people have slipped in public places. Improvements to the human artificial hip joint are also partly a result of extensive tribology research.In order to solve such problems, tribology should be regarded as an important undergraduate course. This book covers tribology in such a way as to provide simple approximate solutions to frequent practical problems. Unlike previous books, which catered for earlier generations of undergraduates, today's students generally have sophisticated computer systems available in their colleges. Therefore, many of the worked and set examples in the book are made easier by using readily available software such as Math CAD. Readers will thus gain practice in using it, and will benefit in general by understanding the mathematical principles involved in the solutions. This book is particularly useful to engineering undergraduates and practicing engineers needing a quick solution to tribological problems.

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This book sets out the unique and paradoxical position biomedical science finds itself in, in the early 21st (superscript st) century. Science has never been stronger in shaping the world we live in; progress in medical science during most of the last century has helped to transform health care and prolong our lives; almost daily advances in biological science promise hope for the future and yet medical science has been in serious decline for the past three decades.Biomedical Science in the 21st (superscript st) Century: Sunset or New Dawn? sets out the recent decline in the context of medical science's stunning past successes. Professor Sheridan discusses the failure to translate new discoveries in biological science into medical advances; the dramatic decline in research productivity in the pharmaceutical industry in the context of falling numbers of clinical scientists; the disruption of medical science during prolonged and repeated reforms of health care delivery; changing social and political attitudes towards health care and science; the loss of trust in big pharmaceutical companies and recent revelations of fraud in science. The book deals with the creative nature of original science, how it is driven by curiosity and self-motivation and how these can be stifled by pettifogging managerialism.The book presents a vision of what medical science can deliver during the coming half century and what is needed to overcome the present challenges. It questions the assumptions that big is best in the organisation of science and suggests a new model for drug development based on a restoration of trust and a more constructive relationship between regulators and industry.

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This book presents a concise and rigorous treatment of stochastic calculus. It also gives its main applications in finance, biology and engineering. In finance, the stochastic calculus is applied to pricing options by no arbitrage. In biology, it is applied to populations' models, and in engineering it is applied to filter signal from noise. Not everything is proved, but enough proofs are given to make it a mathematically rigorous exposition.This book aims to present the theory of stochastic calculus and its applications to an audience which possesses only a basic knowledge of calculus and probability. It may be used as a textbook by graduate and advanced undergraduate students in stochastic processes, financial mathematics and engineering. It is also suitable for researchers to gain working knowledge of the subject. It contains many solved examples and exercises making it suitable for self study.In the book many of the concepts are introduced through worked-out examples, eventually leading to a complete, rigorous statement of the general result, and either a complete proof, a partial proof or a reference. Using such structure, the text will provide a mathematically literate reader with rapid introduction to the subject and its advanced applications. The book covers models in mathematical finance, biology and engineering. For mathematicians, this book can be used as a first text on stochastic calculus or as a companion to more rigorous texts by a way of examples and exercises.

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This elegant book provides a student-friendly introduction to the subject of physical chemistry. It is by the author of the very successful Basic Chemical Thermodynamics and is written in the same well-received popular style. It is concise and more compact than standard textbooks on the subject and emphasises the two important topics underpinning the subject: quantum mechanics and the second law of thermodynamics. Both topics are challenging to students because they focus on uncertainty and probability. The book explains these fundamental concepts clearly and shows how they offer the key to understanding a wide range of chemical phenomena including atomic and molecular spectra, the structure and properties of solids, liquids and gases, chemical equilibrium and the rates of chemical reactions.This revised edition has enabled improvements and corrections to be made.

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Advances in Earth Science outlines the latest developments and new research directions currently being made world-wide in the earth sciences. It contains invited and refereed articles by leading younger researchers on their cutting-edge research, but aimed at a general scientific audience.This exciting volume explains how powerful methodologies such as satellite remote sensing and supercomputing simulations are now profoundly changing research in the earth sciences; how the earth system is increasingly being viewed in a holistic way, linking the atmosphere, ocean and solid earth; and how the societal impact of the research in the earth sciences has never been more important.Published by Imperial College Press in collaboration with the Royal Society of London, the book features many articles originating from invited papers published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Eleven of the distinguished contributors hold prestigious Royal Society Research Fellowships.

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Over 500 prokaryotic genomes have been sequenced to date, and thousands more have been planned for the next few years. While these genomic sequence data provide unprecedented opportunities for biologists to study the world of prokaryotes, they also raise extremely challenging issues such as how to decode the rich information encoded in these genomes. This comprehensive volume includes a collection of cohesively written chapters on prokaryotic genomes, their organization and evolution, the information they encode, and the computational approaches needed to derive such information. A comparative view of bacterial and archaeal genomes, and how information is encoded differently in them, is also presented. Combining theoretical discussions and computational techniques, the book serves as a valuable introductory textbook for graduate-level microbial genomics and informatics courses.

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Stem cells have generated considerable interest recently in the scientific, clinical, and public arenas. The third book in the Stem Cell Repair and Regeneration series offers contributions from numerous areas bridging medicine and the life sciences.Significant research activities in the tissue engineering or regenerative medicine (the term recently used) field started in the 1970s, and there is currently great excitement over the possibility of replacing damaged body parts through regenerative medicine. Potential strategies to replace, repair and restore the function of damaged tissues or organs include stem cell transplantation, transplantation of tissues engineered in the laboratory, and the induction of regeneration by the body's own cells. It is believed that novel cellular therapeutics outperform any medical device, recombinant protein or chemical compound.This volume explores novel stem cell therapeutic strategies for myriad diseases, including renal failure, retinal disease and myocardial infarction.

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This book provides an in-depth treatment of the study of the stability of engineering structures. Contributions from internationally recognized leaders in the field ensure a wide coverage of engineering disciplines in which structural stability is of importance, in particular the analytical and numerical modelling of structural stability applied to aeronautical, civil, marine and offshore structures. The results from a number of comprehensive experimental test programs are also presented, thus enhancing our understanding of stability phenomena as well as validating the analytical and computational solution schemes presented. A variety of structural materials are investigated with special emphasis on carbon-fibre composites, which are being increasingly utilized in weight-critical structures. Instabilities at the meso- and micro-scales are also discussed. This book will be particularly relevant to professional engineers, graduate students and researchers interested in structural stability.

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Pseudo-Riemannian geometry is an active research field not only in differential geometry but also in mathematical physics where the higher signature geometries play a role in brane theory. An essential reference tool for research mathematicians and physicists, this book also serves as a useful introduction to students entering this active and rapidly growing field. The author presents a comprehensive treatment of several aspects of pseudo-Riemannian geometry, including the spectral geometry of the curvature tensor, curvature homogeneity, and Stanilov-Tsankov-Videv theory.

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This book outlines a selection of exciting advances currently being made worldwide in the field of modern engineering at the nanometer scale. Leading scientists and engineers give a general overview of research advances in their specialized subject areas. They also describe some of their own cutting-edge research and give their visions of the future.Written in a popular and well-illustrated style, the articles are written by young scientists many of whom hold, or have held, prestigious Royal Society or EPSRC Fellowships. Carefully selected by Professor A G Davies and Professor J M T Thompson FRS, topics include: the fabrication and measurement of nanoelectronic devices, organic conductors, and bioelectronic materials; the assembly of such structures into appropriate configurations, including the use of biological processes to drive the assembly; the development of new materials including both organic and inorganic wires, carbon nanotubes, and magnetic materials; and finally, the analysis and characterization of these structures.The book conveys the excitement and enthusiasm of the authors for their work at the frontiers of modern engineering nanotechnology. All are definitive reviews for readers with a general interest in the future directions of science and engineering at the nanometer scale.

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This volume is concerned with functional nanomaterials: materials containing specific, predictable nanostructure whose chemical composition or interfacial structure enable them to perform a specific job — destroy, sequester or detect some material that constitutes an environmental threat. Nanomaterials have a number of features that make them ideally suited for this job: high surface area, high reactivity, easy dispersability, and rapid diffusion. The purpose of this book is to showcase how these features can be tailored to address some of the environmental remediation and sensing/detection problems faced today. The leading researchers contributing to this volume paint a picture of diverse synthetic strategies, structures, materials and methods. The book is organized into sections on nanoparticle-based remediation strategies, nanostructured inorganic materials (such as layered materials like the apatites), nanostructured organic/inorganic hybrid materials, and the use of nanomaterials to enhance the performance of sensors. The chemistries captured by the contributors form a rich and colorful tapestry.

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This book provides an introduction for graduate students and advanced undergraduate students to the field of astrophysical fluid dynamics. Although sometimes ignored, fluid dynamical processes play a central role in virtually all areas of astrophysics.No previous knowledge of fluid dynamics is assumed. After establishing the basic equations of fluid dynamics and the physics relevant to an astrophysical application, a variety of topics in the field are addressed. There is also a chapter introducing the reader to numerical methods. Appendices list useful physical constants and astronomical quantities, and provide handy reference material on Cartesian tensors, vector calculus in polar coordinates, self-adjoint eigenvalue problems and JWKB theory.

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Communication networks and computer systems research is entering a new phase in which many of the established models and techniques of the last twenty years are being challenged. The research community is continuing to free itself from past intellectual constraints so that it may fully exploit the convergence of computing and communications. Evaluating the performance of emerging communications and computer systems constitutes a huge challenge. Thus, current research provides a set of heterogeneous tools and techniques embracing the uncertainties of time and space varying environments when the requests for diverse services are made in real time, and with very different quality of service expectations.These novel techniques will lead to fast and economic service deployment and effective dynamic resource management, and hence to new business strategies and infrastructures that will facilitate the emergence of future services and applications.This volume contains contributions and presentations made by leading international researchers at a workshop which was held in April 2004 to honour Professor Erol Gelenbe on the occasion of his inaugural lecture as the Dennis Gabor Chair at Imperial College London.

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The last decade has seen major advances in our understanding of the basic scientific principles that underpin clinical neurology. Many of these advances have already had a major impact on routine clinical practice, and this is likely to continue in the future. Although this makes it an exciting time to practice neurology, it also presents new challenges. How can established general neurologists keep up-to-date with clinically relevant scientific advances, and how can the specialist remain competent outside his own field? What should trainee neurologists learn to prepare themselves for the future career?Written by experts in the field, this timely book presents the scientific principles behind neurology. It aims to take the reader from the human genome, through gene expression, to molecular and cellular pathology, and subsequently to contemporary clinical investigations and clinical trials. Each contribution includes a discussion about the future of the field and highlights areas of potential growth and their relevance to routine clinical practice over the next decade. The succinctly written chapters will be easily accessible to both neurologists and trainees who have no expertise in the area.Many of the chapters are co-written by a clinician and a basic scientist, and each has been subject to peer review — both by experts in the field and a “jobbing” general neurologist. This has ensured that the contributions reflect contemporary scientific thinking which is presented in a way that is easy to digest. The book includes generous use of diagrams to help explain difficult concepts, a glossary explaining the terminology, and provides information on links to web-based resources for further information.

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This book is based on lectures presented over many years to second and third year mathematics students in the Mathematics Departments at Bedford College, London, and King's College, London, as part of the BSc. and MSci. program. Its aim is to provide a gentle yet rigorous first course on complex analysis.Metric space aspects of the complex plane are discussed in detail, making this text an excellent introduction to metric space theory. The complex exponential and trigonometric functions are defined from first principles and great care is taken to derive their familiar properties. In particular, the appearance of π, in this context, is carefully explained.The central results of the subject, such as Cauchy's Theorem and its immediate corollaries, as well as the theory of singularities and the Residue Theorem are carefully treated while avoiding overly complicated generality. Throughout, the theory is illustrated by examples.A number of relevant results from real analysis are collected, complete with proofs, in an appendix.The approach in this book attempts to soften the impact for the student who may feel less than completely comfortable with the logical but often overly concise presentation of mathematical analysis elsewhere.

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The manufacture of silicon single crystals is one of the most important processes in the information technology industry. This book explains the details of liquid metal convection, providing a guide for the elegant operation and control of Czochralski crystal growth, including the effect of magnetic control. Also covered is the newly emerging research field of the application of strong magnetic field using a superconducting magnet. Model equations for the phenomena in the magnetic field are treated in detail, which will be of much use to researchers and engineers in the field.The coverage includes the effect of the Lorentz force in materials processing and the magnetic force of recently developed superconducting magnets. It examines heat, mass and momentum transfer in electro-conducting and non-conducting fluids under normal and very strong magnetic fields. The book also treats the Czochralski single crystal growth process and continuous steel casting process as the most important current applications of magnetic fields. Numerical approaches are compared with the corresponding experimental measurements.

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An essential graduate level text on the asymptotic analysis of ordinary differential equations, this book covers all the important methods including dominant balance, the use of divergent asymptotic series, phase integral methods, asymptotic evaluation of integrals, and boundary layer analysis. The construction of integral solutions and the use of analytic continuation are used in conjunction with the asymptotic analysis, to show the interrelatedness of these methods. Some of the functions of classical analysis are used as examples, to provide an introduction to their analytic and asymptotic properties, and to give derivations of some of the important identities satisfied by them. There is no attempt to give a complete presentation of all these functions. The emphasis is on the various techniques of analysis: obtaining asymptotic limits, connecting different asymptotic solutions, and obtaining integral representation.

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Atomic clusters are the bridge between molecules and the bulk matter. Following two key experiments — the observation of electronic shells in metallic clusters and the discovery of the C60 fullerence — the field of atomic clusters has experienced a rapid growth, and is now considered a mature field. The electrons of the cluster are confined to a small volume, hence, quantum effects are manifested on many properties of the clusters. Another interesting feature is that the properties often change in a non-smooth way as the number of atoms in the cluster increases. This book provides an updated overview of the field, and presents a detailed description of the structure and electronic properties of different types of clusters: Van der Waals clusters, metallic clusters, clusters of ionic materials and network clusters. The assembling of clusters is also considered, since specially stable clusters are expected to play a role in the future design and synthesis of new materials.

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The book presents exact results for one-dimensional models (including quantum spin models) of strongly correlated electrons in a comprehensive and concise manner. It incorporates important results related to magnetic and hybridization impurities in electron hosts and contains exact original results for disordered ensembles of impurities in interacting systems. These models describe a number of real low-dimensional electron systems that are widely used in nanophysics and microelectronics.An important method of modern theoretical and mathematical physics — the Bethe's Ansatz (BA) — is introduced to readers. This book presents different forms of the BA for periodic and open quantum chains. Other forms dealt with are the co-ordinate BA, thermodynamic BA, nested BA, algebraic BA, and thermal BA. The book also contains a compact description of other theoretical methods such as scaling, conformal field theory, Abelian and non-Abelian bosonizations.The book is suitable for use as a textbook by graduate students in non-perturbative methods of low-dimensional quantum many-body theory. It will also be a useful source of reference for qualified physicists, as well as non-experts in low-dimensional physics, as it explores material necessary for further studies in the fields of exactly solvable quantum models and low-dimensional correlated electron systems.

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This book provides an introduction to representations of both finite and compact groups. The proofs of the basic results are given for the finite case, but are so phrased as to hold without change for compact topological groups with an invariant integral replacing the sum over the group elements as an averaging tool. Among the topics covered are the relation between representations and characters, the construction of irreducible representations, induced representations and Frobenius reciprocity. Special emphasis is given to exterior powers, with the symmetric group Sn as an illustrative example. The book concludes with a chapter comparing the representations of the finite group SL2(p) and the non-compact Lie group SL2(P).

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Ultrafiltration is a pressure-driven, membrane-based separation process, which is used for a broad variety of applications, ranging from the processing of biological macromolecules to wastewater treatment. It has significant advantages over competing separation technologies. Food and biotechnological applications account for nearly 40% of the current total usage of ultrafiltration membranes. Protein bioseparation is an important component of this application segment. Ultrafiltration is used for protein concentration, desalting, clarification and fractionation (i.e. protein-protein separation). Concentration, desalting and clarification are technologically less demanding and have been in used in the bioprocess industry for some time. Protein fractionation, on the other hand, is a challenging proposition and is definitely a more recent development. This book focuses primarily on protein fractionation.

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Colossal magnetoresistance materials, to which manganites and conventional ferromagnetic semiconductors belong, draw great attention because of their intriguing physical properties and the excellent prospects for their practical applications in electronic devices. In addition, magnetic semiconductors are basic materials for high-temperature conductors, and it is impossible to construct a theory of the latter without elucidating properties of the former.This book presents theoretical and experimental results on manganites and conventional magnetic semiconductors, with emphasis on the former. It is addressed mainly to researchers dealing with manganites or high-temperature superconductors, but is also useful for undergraduate and graduate students.

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In this textbook, basic aspects of the cardiovascular system in health and disease are described in relation to a series of 30 case descriptions. This style of presentation mirrors that required for the new medical curriculum, as recommended by the General Medical Council. The clinical relevance of preclinical knowledge is immediately made apparent to the student by its description as applied to the clinical cases.

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Latest Edition: From Knowledge Management to Strategic Competence: Assessing Technological, Market and Organisational Innovation (3rd Edition)The business and academic communities pay much interest to the concept of knowledge management and strategic competencies or core capabilities; that is, how organizations define and differentiate themselves. This book attempts to establish the links between strategic competencies, knowledge management, organizational learning and innovation management — specifically, how an organization identifies, assesses and exploits its competencies, and translates these into new processes, products and services.The contributors to the book include leading researchers and consultants in the field. Adopting a practical but rigorous approach to the subject, they focus on the measurement, management and improvement of organizational, technological and market competencies, and identify the relationships with strategic, operational and financial performance.

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Near-field optics studies the behaviour of light fields in the vicinity of matter, where light is structured in propagating and evanescent fields. Near-field optical microscopy is the straightforward application of near-field optics.This textbook provides an overview for undergraduates and anyone who has an interest in peculiar optical phenomena, and serves as a technical manual for engineers and researchers. It consists of 12 chapters dealing with the history of near-field optics, non-radiating optics, optical noise, inverse problems, theory, instrumentation and applications; there is an appendix including the basic elements of Fourier optics and Maxwell equations.

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Porous materials are of scientific and technological importance because of the presence of voids of controllable dimensions at the atomic, molecular, and nanometer scales, enabling them to discriminate and interact with molecules and clusters. Interestingly the big deal about this class of materials is about the “nothingness” within — the pore space. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) classifies porous materials into three categories — micropores of less than 2 nm in diameter, mesopores between 2 and 50 nm, and macropores of greater than 50 nm. In this book, nanoporous materials are defined as those porous materials with pore diameters less than 100 nm.Over the last decade, there has been an ever increasing interest and research effort in the synthesis, characterization, functionalization, molecular modeling and design of nanoporous materials. The main challenges in research include the fundamental understanding of structure-property relations and tailor-design of nanostructures for specific properties and applications. Research efforts in this field have been driven by the rapid growing emerging applications such as biosensor, drug delivery, gas separation, energy storage and fuel cell technology, nanocatalysis and photonics. These applications offer exciting new opportunities for scientists to develop new strategies and techniques for the synthesis and applications of these materials.This book provides a series of systematic reviews of the recent developments in nanoporous materials. It covers the following topics: (1) synthesis, processing, characterization and property evaluation; (2) functionalization by physical and/or chemical treatments; (3) experimental and computational studies on fundamental properties, such as catalytic effects, transport and adsorption, molecular sieving and biosorption; (4) applications, including photonic devices, catalysis, environmental pollution control, biological molecules separation and isolation, sensors, membranes, hydrogen and energy storage, etc.

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Plant breeding, animal breeding, medical genetics and the genetics of industrial fungi are usually taught separately, but they are all linked by strong central concepts regarding the generation, control, fate and use of genetic variation at the levels of genes, chromosomes, genomes and populations. Mutation, recombination, selection, population genetics and karyotype changes are involved, together with breeding systems.This book constitutes an integrated undergraduate course in applied genetics based on those central concepts. It is suitable for those interested in working with plants, animals, humans or fungi. Such a course, or selected parts of it, is applicable to students of biological, microbiological, agricultural and biomedical sciences.

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The analysis of well tests constitutes one of the most powerful tools for the effective description of a petroleum reservoir and its subsequent management. This requires that the well test be placed in the proper context of related disciplines, especially geoscience, production and reservoir engineering. Modern methods of automated data processing can conceal mathematical limitations and overlook the need for realistic physical and geologic models. This book emphasizes the plausible physical contexts and mathematical models and limitations, and also the importance of realistic geologic models in analysis.Although the book is clearly targeted at petroleum engineers, the approach taken by the authors will no doubt find favour with practitioners in other areas of fluid flow in porous media, such as hydrology and the flow of pollutants. Scattered throughout the book are worked examples of the use of the methods described in the text. It also contains extensive appendices on permeability, application of Laplace transforms to flow equations valid for single and multi-layered systems, convolution and deconvolution, dimensionless parameters and P-theorems, and physical and thermodynamic properties of gases. This book should appeal to students as well as practitioners in industry; many in the latter group may have benefited before from formal exposure to the underlying theory and its limitations in real reservoir environments.

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In the first part of this book, classical nonequilibrium statistical mechanics is developed. Starting from the Hamiltonian dynamics of the molecules, it leads through the irreversible kinetic equations to the level of fluid mechanics. For simple systems, all the transport coefficients are determined by the molecular properties.The second part of the book treats complex systems that require a more extensive use of statistical concepts. Such problems, which are at the forefront of research, include: continuous time random walks, non-Markovian diffusion processes, percolation and related critical phenomena, transport on fractal structures, transport and deterministic chaos. These “strange transport processes” differ significantly from the usual (diffusive) transport. Their inclusion in a general treatise on statistical mechanics is a special feature of this invaluable book.

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Tolerance design techniques are playing an increasingly important role in maximizing the manufacturing yield of mass-produced electronic circuits. Tolerance Design of Electronic Circuits presents an account of design and analysis methods used to minimize the unwanted effects of component tolerances.Highlights of the book include• An overview of the concepts of Tolerance Analysis and Design• A detailed discussion of the Statistical Exploration Approach to tolerance design• An engineering discussion of the Monte Carlo statistical method• A presentation of several successful examples of the application of tolerance designThis book will be highly appropriate for professional Electronic Circuit Designers, Computer Aided Design Specialists, Electronic Engineering undergraduates and graduates taking courses in Advanced Electronic Circuit Design.

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This is a concise guide for anyone who has ever found the prospect of speaking technically to be daunting.The author draws upon his observations of people speaking technically in after-dinner speeches; conference presentations; coping with visitors; inaugural lectures; industrial presentations; industrial tourism; lectures to students; presentations to funding bodies; project reports; public inquiries; school talks; section and departmental meetings; telephone calls and consultations.He offers the reader practical tools and principles for organising information and making technical communication lively and memorable.Complete with highlighted points, checklists and review points for easy reference and practice, Speaking Technically is for anyone who has ideas and information to communicate, wants to do so effectively, finds the process stressful and has little time to prepare.

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This book provides a concise introduction to practical aspects of atomic-resolution imaging in aberration-corrected electron microscopy. As such, it addresses recent advances in electron optical instrumentation used for ultra-high resolution imaging in materials and nano-science. It covers two of the most popular atomic resolution imaging techniques' namely high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and scanning transmission electron microscopy. The book bridges the gap between application-oriented textbooks in conventional electron microscopy and books in physics covering dedicated topics in charged-particle optics and aberration correction.The book is structured in three parts which can be read separately. While in the first part the fundamentals of the imaging techniques and their limits in conventional electron microscopes are explained, the second part provides readers with the basic principles of electron optics and the characteristics of electron lenses. The third part, focusing on aberrations, describes the functionality of aberration correctors and provides readers with practical guidelines for the daily work with aberration-corrected electron microscopes. The book represents a detailed and easy readable guide to aberration-corrected electron microscopy.

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This is a practical guide for the management of common fractures of the hand and carpus. Hand fractures constitute a large proportion of all fractures and are treated by a variety of practitioners, ranging from orthopaedic and plastic surgeons to emergency nurse practitioners.This book systematically addresses all common hand fracture patterns with illustrative radiographs for each type. The reader can see a patient, take a radiograph of their injury and find an almost exact match to one in this book. He or she will then be guided to the correct treatment, supported by clear and practical instructions from the immediate management to technical tips on definitive surgical fracture fixation. The treatments described emphasise simple and reliable treatments that can be applied in most medical settings. This makes the book applicable in both first and third world countries.Versions of this book have been used and have proven popular in a number of Orthopaedic and A&E departments across the UK. It is an easy-to-use reference for medical and non-medical staff including nurses, physiotherapists as well as junior and senior hospital doctors and general practitioners.

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Most books on environmental science focus on ecological or biological aspects of environmental conservation, often with a polemic agenda. The physics, if covered at all, is generally superficial. Using pertinent examples from the environment and the ways in which people interact with it, Physics of the Environment sets out to provide a cogent account of the underlying physical laws with a lucidity and rigor appropriate to an undergraduate course in the subject. Students will gain an understanding of the physical concepts that govern the world as well as an appreciation of the technologies of power generation and transport, and the impact these have on the environment.

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This book represents a collection of papers from one of the founders of the new Philosophy of Chemistry. It is only the second single-author collection of papers on the Philosophy of Chemistry.The author is the editor-in-chief of Foundations of Chemistry, the leading journal in the field. He has recently gained worldwide success with his book on the periodic table of the elements titled The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance. This volume provides an in-depth examination of his more philosophical and historical work in this area and further afield.

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