Search results for ""Author John Wiley"

In an era of ubiquity, nomadism and ecological challenge, the maturity of wireless technologies, the readiness of broadband Internet access and the popularity of smart terminals should contribute to emancipating IT services in connection with the home and home-based resources. This book, in light of several years of applied research and technological surveys, aims at describing the digital home networking environment, its techniques, and the challenges around its service architecture. Digital Home Networking aims to provide a broad introduction to state-of-the-art digital home standards and protocols, as well as an in-depth description of service architectures for entertainment and domotic services involving digital home resources. The book covers aspects such as networking, remote access, security, interoperability, scalability and Quality of Service. Notably, it describes the generic architecture, which was proposed and developed in the context of the EUREKA/Celtic research project "Feel@Home".

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Nowadays, distributed systems are increasingly present, for public software applications as well as critical systems. software applications as well as critical systems. This title and Distributed Systems: Design and Algorithms – from the same editors – introduce the underlying concepts, the associated design techniques and the related security issues. The objective of this book is to describe the state of the art of the formal methods for the analysis of distributed systems. Numerous issues remain open and are the topics of major research projects. One current research trend consists of profoundly mixing the design, modeling, verification and implementation stages. This prototyping-based approach is centered around the concept of model refinement. This book is more specifically intended for readers that wish to gain an overview of the application of formal methods in the design of distributed systems. Master’s and PhD students, as well as engineers in industry, will find a global understanding of the techniques as well as references to the most up-to-date works in this area.

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Numerous formalisms have been designed to model and solve decision-making problems. Some formalisms, such as constraint networks, can express "simple" decision problems, while others take into account uncertainties (probabilities, possibilities...), unfeasible decisions, and utilities (additive or not). In the first part of this book, we introduce a generic algebraic framework that encompasses and unifies a large number of such formalisms. This formalism, called the Plausibility–Feasibility–Utility (PFU) framework, is based on algebraic structures, graphical models, and sequences of quantifications. This work on knowledge representation is completed by a work on algorithms for answering queries formulated in the PFU framework. The algorithms defined are based on variable elimination or tree search, and work on a new generic architecture for local computations called multi-operator cluster DAGs.

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Multivariate imagery is now a very common tool in numerous applications, ranging from satellite remote sensing and astrophysics to biomedical imagery, monitoring of the environment or industrial inspection. Multivariate must be understood in th emost general way: color and multispectral imaging, but also multimodal, multisource or multitemporal imagery. In all the cases, the multivariate image corresponds to a set of standard grey level images. The availability of the additional diversity, be it spectral temporal and s.o., provides an invaluable source of information, enabling to consider a wide range of new applications. However, in order to address these applications, theoretical developments are required in terms of signal and image processing, or, more generally speaking, information processing. As a matter of fact, most of the standard algorithms designed for grey level images do not generalize easily to multidimensional spaces and some specific derivations are required. This book aims at presenting the most recent advances in signal and image processing for the analysis of multivariate data. It should be helpful for electrical engineers, PhD students and researcher working in the field of signal processing, but also for any engineer dealing with some specific application where multidimensional data are processed.

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This book provides a detailed study of Financial Mathematics. In addition to the extraordinary depth the book provides, it offers a study of the axiomatic approach that is ideally suited for analyzing financial problems. This book is addressed to MBA's, Financial Engineers, Applied Mathematicians, Banks, Insurance Companies, and Students of Business School, of Economics, of Applied Mathematics, of Financial Engineering, Banks, and more.

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Reliability and survival analysis are important applications of stochastic mathematics (probability, statistics and stochastic processes) that are usually covered separately in spite of the similarity of the involved mathematical theory. This title aims to redress this situation: it includes 21 chapters divided into four parts: Survival analysis, Reliability, Quality of life, and Related topics. Many of these chapters were presented at the European Seminar on Mathematical Methods for Survival Analysis, Reliability and Quality of Life in 2006.

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Heat Transfer 2 deals with radiation, heat exchangers and flat plate solar collectors. It presents the treatment of radiation in semi-transparent media to be taken into account for insulation or recovery of high temperature waste heat (energy saving in industry), as well as in certain solar applications (energy transition). The numerous solved exercises allow the reader to grasp the whole range of applications, whether in the field of building, transport, materials or the environment. The appendices contain all the data needed to solve the exercises and will be a valuable source of information. This book is designed for masters and engineering students who are interested in all aspects of heat transfer, but also for engineers who will find the bases needed to understand similar phenomena (conduction-convection-radiation), but which require a different form of reflection and approach.

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Heat Transfer 1 deals with conduction and convection. It examines the treatment of transient conduction, which is essential for the optimization of processes and systems, as well as for all energy saving problems. The numerous solved exercises allow the reader to grasp the whole range of applications, whether in the field of building, transport, materials or the environment. The appendices contain all the data needed to solve the exercises and will be a valuable source of information. This book is designed for masters and engineering students who are interested in all aspects of heat transfer, but also for engineers who will find the bases needed to understand similar phenomena (conduction-convection-radiation), but which require a different form of reflection and approach.

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This book – comprised of three separate volumes – presents the recent developments and research discoveries in structural and solid mechanics; it is dedicated to Professor Isaac Elishakoff. This second volume is devoted to the vibrations of solid and structural members. Modern Trends in Structural and Solid Mechanics 2 has broad scope, covering topics such as: exact and approximate vibration solutions of rods, beams, membranes, plates and three-dimensional elasticity problems, Bolotin�s dynamic edge effect, the principles of plate theories in dynamics, nano- and microbeams, nonlinear dynamics of shear extensible beams, the vibration and aeroelastic stability behavior of cellular beams, the dynamic response of elastoplastic softening oscillators, the complex dynamics of hysteretic oscillators, bridging waves, and the three-dimensional propagation of waves. This book is intended for graduate students and researchers in the field of theoretical and applied mechanics.

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I.AM catalyzes the “convergence for good” of the biological, physical and digital worlds, helping us to better tackle the toughest challenges of the 2020s: climate change, resource depletion, an aging population, social inclusion, the empowerment of people, health crises and the post-pandemic world, as well as new issues emerging in relation to economical, societal and everyday life. This book dives into disruptive concepts of I.AM such as: Trust as a Service, Business as a Game, ATAWAD (AnyTime, AnyWhere, Any Device), PCE (Productivity of Collaborative Exchange), Unimedia, Shazamization of everything, decentralization of everything, BOTization and Build to Order for Me, Blockchain and Empowerment of Me, edge computing, augmented industry, augmentation value chain and empowering innovation, etc. The fluid, easy-to-read style of this book targets the broadest scope of readers, from purpose-driven and business-oriented individuals, to students, researchers, experts, innovators, consultants, managers and politicians, all eager to empower people to work towards a more sustainable future.

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Solving Transport Problems establishes fundamental points and good practice in resolving matters regarding green transportation. This is to prompt further research in conveyance issues by providing readers with new knowledge and grounds for integrated models and solution methods. Focusing on green transportation, this book covers various sub-topics and thus consists of diverse content. Traditionally, academia and transport practitioners have mainly concentrated on efficient fleet management to achieve economic benefits and better-quality service. More recently, due to growing public environmental concerns and the industry understanding of the issue, the academic community has started to address environmental issues. The studies of green transportation compiled in this book have identified certain areas of interest, such as references, viewpoints, algorithms and ideas. Solving Transport Problems is for researchers, environmental decision-makers and other concerned parties, to start discussion on developing optimized technology and alternative fuel-based integrated models for environmentally cleaner transport systems.

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Virtual and Augmented Reality have existed for a long time but were stuck to the research world or to some large manufacturing companies. With the appearance of low-cost devices, it is expected a number of new applications, including for the general audience. This book aims at making a statement about those novelties as well as distinguishing them from the complexes challenges they raise by proposing real use cases, replacing those recent evolutions through the VR/AR dynamic and by providing some perspective for the years to come.

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In this book, two kinds of analysis based on acoustic emission recorded during mechanical tests are investigated. In the first, individual, analysis, acoustic signature of each damage mechanism is characterized. So with a clustering method, AE signals that have similar shapes or similar features can be group together into a cluster. Afterwards, each cluster can be linked with a main damage. The second analysis is based on a global AE analysis, on the investigation of liberated energy, with a view to identify a critical point. So beyond this characteristic point, the criticality can be modeled with a power-law in order to evaluate time to failure.

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Our four volumes propose to present innovative thematic applications implemented using the open source software QGIS. These are applications that use remote sensing over continental surfaces. The four volumes detail applications of remote sensing over continental surfaces, with a first one discussing applications for agriculture. A second one presents applications for forest, a third presents applications for the continental hydrology, and finally the last volume details applications for environment and risk issues.

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This book details recent advances in all aspects related to scale transition in crystal plasticity and damage, with a particular focus on the challenges associated with the characterization and modeling of this class of complex interactions. The following topics are included: Innovative characterization techniques (multi-scale characterization, SEMTEM coupling, TEM-micro-diffraction coupling, in-situ mechanical tests, localization, image correlation, displacement field measurements, tomography, etc.). Computational crystal plasticity and damage (dislocation dynamics and ab initio calculations, microstructure evolution of polycrystals, comparison between FE, fast Fourier transform and self-consistent approaches, intragranular slip, heterogeneities, discrete approaches, etc.). The book gathers together selected papers from the invited lectures presented at the 3rd and 4th US-France Symposia organized by the editors under the auspices of the International Center for Applied Computational Mechanics (ICACM).

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Both naturally-occurring and man-made materials are often heterogeneous materials formed of various constituents with different properties and behaviours. Studies are usually carried out on volumes of materials that contain a large number of heterogeneities. Describing these media by using appropriate mathematical models to describe each constituent turns out to be an intractable problem. Instead they are generally investigated by using an equivalent macroscopic description - relative to the microscopic heterogeneity scale - which describes the overall behaviour of the media. Fundamental questions then arise: Is such an equivalent macroscopic description possible? What is the domain of validity of this macroscopic description? The homogenization technique provides complete and rigorous answers to these questions. This book aims to summarize the homogenization technique and its contribution to engineering sciences. Researchers, graduate students and engineers will find here a unified and concise presentation. The book is divided into four parts whose main topics are Introduction to the homogenization technique for periodic or random media, with emphasis on the physics involved in the mathematical process and the applications to real materials. Heat and mass transfers in porous media Newtonian fluid flow in rigid porous media under different regimes Quasi-statics and dynamics of saturated deformable porous media Each part is illustrated by numerical or analytical applications as well as comparison with the self-consistent approach.

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This book gathers together a selection of papers presented at the Joint CTS-HYCON Workshop on Nonlinear and Hybrid Control held at the Paris Sorbonne, France, 10-12 July 2006. The main objective of the Workshop was to promote the exchange of ideas and experiences and reinforce scientific contacts in the large multidisciplinary area of the control of nonlinear and hybrid systems.

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This book is organized around the various sensing techniques used to achieve structural health monitoring. Its main focus is on sensors, signal and data reduction methods and inverse techniques, which enable the identification of the physical parameters, affected by the presence of the damage, on which a diagnostic is established. Structural Health Monitoring is not oriented by the type of applications or linked to special classes of problems, but rather presents broader families of techniques: vibration and modal analysis; optical fibre sensing; acousto-ultrasonics, using piezoelectric transducers; and electric and electromagnetic techniques. Each chapter has been written by specialists in the subject area who possess a broad range of practical experience. The book will be accessible to students and those new to the field, but the exhaustive overview of present research and development, as well as the numerous references provided, also make it required reading for experienced researchers and engineers.

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The purpose of this book is to present the main methods of static and dynamic optimization. It has been written within the framework of the European Union project – ERRIC (Empowering Romanian Research on Intelligent Information Technologies), funded by the EU’s FP7 Research Potential program and developed in cooperation between French and Romanian teaching researchers. Through the principles of various proposed algorithms (with additional references) this book allows the interested reader to explore various methods of implementation such as linear programming, nonlinear programming – particularly important given the wide variety of existing algorithms, dynamic programming with various application examples and Hopfield networks. The book examines optimization in relation to systems identification; optimization of dynamic systems with particular application to process control; optimization of large scale and complex systems; optimization and information systems.

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The book contains the short papers of the Third International IFIP Working Conference on Enterprise Interoperability, IWEI 2011, held March 22-23, 2011, in Stockholm, Sweden, and the papers of the co-located IWEI Workshops, held on March 21, 2011. The IWEI Working Conference highlighted developments in the following areas: scientific foundations for specifying, analyzing and validating interoperability solutions; architectural frameworks for addressing interoperability challenges from different viewpoints and at different levels of abstraction; maturity models to evaluate and rank interoperability solutions with respect to distinguished quality criteria; and working sets of practical solutions, standards and tools that can be applied to interoperability problems. The IWEI Workshops complemented the IWEI Working Conference and explored new issues and solutions in enterprise interoperability in four separate workshops: (1) Enterprise 2.0 – Using Internet 2.0 Technologies in Enterprise Management; (2) Semantic Interoperability in the Scope of Future Energy Smart Grids; (3) Advanced Results in MDI/SOA Innovation; and (4) Standards Ensuring Enterprise Interoperability and Collaboration – State of the Art and Perspectives. The Workshops offered opportunities to discuss issues raised and to brainstorm about possible solution directions.

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The family of statistical models known as Rasch models started with a simple model for responses to questions in educational tests presented together with a number of related models that the Danish mathematician Georg Rasch referred to as models for measurement. Since the beginning of the 1950s the use of Rasch models has grown and has spread from education to the measurement of health status. This book contains a comprehensive overview of the statistical theory of Rasch models. Part 1 contains the probabilistic definition of Rasch models, Part 2 describes the estimation of item and person parameters, Part 3 concerns the assessment of the data-model fit of Rasch models, Part 4 contains applications of Rasch models, Part 5 discusses how to develop health-related instruments for Rasch models, and Part 6 describes how to perform Rasch analysis and document results.

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This book focuses on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), the basis of sustainable and more agile IT systems that are able to adapt themselves to new trends and manage processes involving a third party. The discussion is based on the public Praxeme method and features a number of examples taken from large SOA projects which were used to rewrite the information systems of an insurance company; as such, decision-makers, creators of IT systems, programmers and computer scientists, as well as those who will use these new developments, will find this a useful resource.

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This book illustrates simply, but with many details, the state of the art of reliability science, exploring clear reliability disciplines and applications through concrete examples from their industries and from real life, based on industrial experiences. Many experts believe that reliability is not only a matter of statistics but is a multidisciplinary scientific topic, involving materials, tests, simulations, quality tools, manufacturing, electronics, mechatronics, environmental engineering and Big Data, among others. For a complex mechatronic system, failure risks have to be identified at an early stage of the design. In the automotive and aeronautic industries, fatigue simulation is used both widely and efficiently. Problems arise from the variability of inputs such as fatigue parameters and life curves. This book aims to discuss probabilistic fatigue and reliability simulation. To do this, Reliability and Physics-of-Healthy in Mechatronics provides a study on some concepts of a predictive reliability model of microelectronics, with examples from the automotive, aeronautic and space industries, based on entropy and Physics-of-Healthy.

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This book centers on climate change, a pressing issue in the ecological transition, particularly for landscape and architecture schools.The scientific realities and consequences of this phenomenon are becoming increasingly well-known and it is now evident that architecture, urban planning and landscaping all have the potential to mitigate these consequences.Ecological Transition in Education and Research is a multidisciplinary collective work, intended to raise awareness of adaptation and mitigation strategies such as action-research, educational innovations and concrete transition practices that embrace different schools of thought. The overall goal is to promote educational practices and research on climate change.

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Asian and European countries have adopted different approaches to the conflicting priorities of economic growth and low carbon emissions. In this volume – based on the revised versions of papers presented at the 24th International Euro-Asia Research Conference held in 2019 – the contrasts between the schools of thought of each continent are explored thoroughly. Ranging from topics as diverse as city logistics, shareholder value and management practices, the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement, China�s geopolitical insights, sustainable agricultural development in India and the empowerment of women in Vietnam via microfinance, this book addresses sustainable development policies in China and Southeast Asia from many different perspectives.

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Data analysis as an area of importance has grown exponentially, especially during the past couple of decades. This can be attributed to a rapidly growing computer industry and the wide applicability of computational techniques, in conjunction with new advances of analytic tools. This being the case, the need for literature that addresses this is self-evident. New publications are appearing, covering the need for information from all fields of science and engineering, thanks to the universal relevance of data analysis and statistics packages. This book is a collective work by a number of leading scientists, analysts, engineers, mathematicians and statisticians who have been working at the forefront of data analysis. The chapters included in this volume represent a cross-section of current concerns and research interests in these scientific areas. The material is divided into two parts: Computational Data Analysis, and Classification Data Analysis, with methods for both - providing the reader with both theoretical and applied information on data analysis methods, models and techniques and appropriate applications.

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Activation Methods examines recent improvements in the utilization of ultrasonic waves and pressurized gases to generate reactions. A straightforward method to use, sonochemistry allows chemical reactions to be carried out under ultrasound without the need for external heat, reagents or catalysts – leading to high yields and the production of a minimum amount of waste. This book presents an overview of the main applications of sonochemistry in green organic chemistry, with an emphasis on texts published within the last few years. High-pressure chemical reactions offer innovative solutions to problems relating to synthesis. They allow access to new products and a further understanding of reaction mechanisms. This book presents the characteristics of hyperbaric activation, which allow the integration of an arsenal of tools for green chemistry, such as the lowering of energy costs and of by-products, as well as the possibility of using substrates that are sterically congested and generally inert.

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Sustainable Enterprise Performance details a method for evaluating an enterprise’s readiness and progress toward sustainable performance through a comprehensive set of qualitative and quantitative indicators. These indicators cover enterprise strategy for meeting both the impact of the enterprise within the framework of corporate social responsibility and the expectations of stakeholders, evolving and monitoring the product and service offerings and business processes. The second half of the book focuses more closely on fundamental determinants of performance, such as digital transformation and artificial intelligence, corporate culture, ethics and compliance, branding and e-reputation and best-practice Lean management, and provides practical measures against which companies may assess the maturity of their sustainable performance.

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The Vlasov equation is the master equation which provides a statistical description for the collective behavior of large numbers of charged particles in mutual, long-range interaction. In other words, a low collision (or “Vlasov”) plasma. Plasma physics is itself a relatively young discipline, whose “birth” can be ascribed to the 1920s. The origin of the Vlasov model, however, is even more recent, dating back to the late 1940s. This “young age” is due to the rare occurrence of Vlasov plasma on Earth, despite the fact it characterizes most of the visible matter in the universe. This book – addressed to students, young researchers and to whoever wants a good understanding of Vlasov plasmas – discusses this model with a pedagogical presentation, focusing on the general properties and historical development of the applications of the Vlasov equation. The milestone developments discussed in the first two chapters serve as an introduction to more recent works (characterization of wave propagation and nonlinear properties of the electrostatic limit).

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This introductory book to the six volume series includes an introduction defining the critical zone for mankind that extends from tree canopy and the lower atmosphere to water table and unweathered rock. Soils play a crucial role through the functions and the services that they provide to mankind. The spatial and temporal variability of soils is represented by information systems whose importance, recent evolutions and increasingly performing applications in France and in the world must be underlined. The soil functions, discussed in this book, focus on the regulation of the water cycle, biophysicochemical cycles and the habitat role of biodiversity. The main services presented are those related to the provision of agricultural, fodder and forest products, energy, as well as materials and the role of soil as infrastructure support. They also include the different cultural dimensions of soils, their representations being often linked to myths and rites, as well as their values of environmental and archaeological records. Finally, the issue is raised of an off-ground world.

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Petri Nets were defined for the study of discrete events systems and later extended for many purposes including dependability assessment. In our knowledge, no book deals specifically with the use of different type of PN to dependability. We propose in addition to bring a focus on the adequacy of Petri net types to the study of various problems related to dependability such as risk analysis and probabilistic assessment. In the first part, the basic models of PN and some useful extensions are briefly recalled. In the second part, the PN are used as a formal model to describe the evolution process of critical system in the frame of an ontological approach. The third part focuses on the stochastic Petri Nets (SPN) and their use in dependability assessment. Different formal models of SPN are formally presented (semantics, evolution rules…) and their equivalence with the corresponding class of Markov processes to get an analytical assessment of dependability. Simplification methods are proposed in order to reduce the size of analytical model and to make it more calculable. The introduction of some concepts specific to high level PN allows too the consideration of complex systems. Few applications in the field of the instrumentation and control (l&C) systems, safety integrated systems (SIS) emphasize the benefits of SPN for dependability assessment.

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This book is a general presentation of complex systems, examined from the point of view of management. There is no standard formula to govern such systems, nor to effectively understand and respond to them. The interdisciplinary theory of self-organization is teeming with examples of living systems that can reorganize at a higher level of complexity when confronted with an external challenge of a certain magnitude. Modern businesses, considered as complex systems, ideally know how to flexibly and resiliently adapt to their environment, and also how to prepare for change via self-organization. Understanding sources of potential crisis is essential for leaders, though not all crises are necessarily bad news, as creative firms know how to respond to challenges through innovation: new products and markets, organizational learning for collective intelligence, and more.

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With the growing maturity of information and communication technologies, systems have been interconnected within growing networks, yielding new services through a combination of the system functionalities. This leads to an increasing complexity that has to be managed in order to take advantage of these system integrations. This book provides key answers as to how such systems of systems can be engineered and how their complexity can be mastered. After reviewing some definitions on systems of systems engineering, the book focuses on concrete applications and offers a survey of the activities and techniques that allow engineering of complex systems and systems of systems. Case studies, ranging from emergency situations such as Hurricane Katrina and its crisis management or a generic scenario of a major traffic accident and its emergency response, to the establishment of a scientific basis in the Antarctic region illustrate key factors of success and traps to avoid in order to cope with such situations.

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Cultural heritage is increasingly recognized for its contributions to the transition to climate action, and heritage education can play an important role in developing climate adaptation competencies. These can foster positive dialogs surrounding climate change, shift attitudes and inspire actions. However, achieving these goals requires bridging the gap between policy, practice and local capacity building, as well as integrating a multi- and transdisciplinary approach into traditional higher education curricula and models. Bringing together knowledge, practice and experiences from different disciplinary silos, this book provides a wide set of innovative teaching and learning methods, tools and pedagogical models that can be adapted to heritage education in order to address climate issues. Organized into four parts, Heritage Education for Climate Action covers a wide array of international experiences, real-life cases and practices, focusing on heritage and resilience building, vulnerability and risk assessment, climate change adaptation, mitigation and policymaking. This book is therefore a source of suggestions and ideas for scholars, educators and professionals who want to develop future climate leadership and contribute to the transition of heritage education toward sustainable development and climate action.

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This book is the first of two volumes on random motions in Markov and semi-Markov random environments. This first volume focuses on homogenous random motions. This volume consists of two parts, the first describing the basic concepts and methods that have been developed for random evolutions. These methods are the foundational tools used in both volumes, and this description includes many results in potential operators. Some techniques to find closed-form expressions in relevant applications are also presented. The second part deals with asymptotic results and presents a variety of applications, including random motion with different types of boundaries, the reliability of storage systems and solutions of partial differential equations with constant coefficients, using commutative algebra techniques. It also presents an alternative formulation to the Black-Scholes formula in finance, fading evolutions and telegraph processes, including jump telegraph processes and the estimation of the number of level crossings for telegraph processes.

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Engineering structures may be subjected to extreme high-rate loading conditions, like those associated with natural disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis, rock falls, etc.) or those of anthropic origin (impacts, fluid–structure interactions, shock wave transmissions, etc.). Characterization and modeling of the mechanical behavior of materials under these environments is important in predicting the response of structures and improving designs. This book gathers contributions by eminent researchers in academia and government research laboratories on the latest advances in the understanding of the dynamic process of damage, cracking and fragmentation. It allows the reader to develop an understanding of the key features of the dynamic mechanical behavior of brittle (e.g. granular and cementitious), heterogeneous (e.g. energetic) and ductile (e.g. metallic) materials.

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This title brings together a variety of papers presented at the 9th annual Meso meeting in 2007. The topics selected for Meso 2007 are designed to illustrate the relation of thresholds to multiscaling: Flow through capillary tubes in contrast to pipes Laminar and turbulent flow transition Heat convection of thin wires in contrast to cylinders Electrical conductance of macro- and nano-circuits Rubbery and glassy polymers Single- and poly-crystal behavior Strength of wires and round cylindrical bars Uni-axial and multi-axial material: linear and non-linear response Thin and thick plate behavior Brittle and ductile fracture Small and large crack growth behavior Low and high temperature effects Local and global material property characteristics Small and large bodies: size and time effects Specimen and structure

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This book contains the proceedings of the international workshop “Designing and Building with Ultra-High Performance Fibre-Reinforced Concrete (UHPFRC): State of the Art and Development”, organized by AFGC, the French Association for Civil Engineering and French branch of fib, in Marseille (France), November 17-18, 2009. This workshop was focused on the experience of a lot of recent UHPFRC realizations. Through more than 50 papers, this book details the experience of many countries in UHPFRC construction and design, including projects from Japan, Germany, Australia, Austria, USA, Denmark, the Netherlands, Canada… and France. The projects are categorized as novel architectural solutions, new frontiers for bridges, new equipments and structural components, and extending the service life of structures. The last part presents major research results, durability and sustainability aspects, and the updated AFGC Recommendations on UHPFRC.

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Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are a mathematical framework for modeling sequential decision problems under uncertainty as well as reinforcement learning problems. Written by experts in the field, this book provides a global view of current research using MDPs in artificial intelligence. It starts with an introductory presentation of the fundamental aspects of MDPs (planning in MDPs, reinforcement learning, partially observable MDPs, Markov games and the use of non-classical criteria). It then presents more advanced research trends in the field and gives some concrete examples using illustrative real life applications.

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Written by a group of acoustics and vibration specialists, this book studies the acoustic and vibrating phenomena that occur in diverse materials used for all kinds of purposes. The first part studies the fundamental aspects of propagation: analytical, numerical and experimental. The second part outlines industrial and medical applications. Covering a wide range of topics that associate materials science with acoustics, this will be of invaluable use to researchers, engineers, or practitioners in this field, as well as students in acoustics, physics, and mechanics.

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Alternative Takes to the City presents the mosaic of relations and socio-spatial conditions which compose the plurality of contemporary everyday space(s) in cities, offering "a view from below". It proposes a multidisciplinary and gendered approach to the (relational) spatialities and temporalities of the everyday, of new mobilities and of global and local networks which constitute urban life in contemporary cities. The book raises an empirically informed theoretical proposition which springs from the multiplicity of everyday experiences, as a laboratory for understanding recent socio-spatial, political and ideological transformations. Each chapter takes forward the theoretical argument based on one or more examples of concrete cities, in order to unveil the complexity and diversity of the urban condition in changing conjunctures, in which local practices connect and collide with global developments.

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The Soviet / Russian space program was in the hands of three industrial empires: those of Serguei Korolev, the Soviet von Braun who launched Sputnik-1 and Yuri Gagarin, Vladimir Tchelomei, his main competitor, and Mikhail Yangel, Many launchers and satellites in Ukraine.In 2011, we published a first book on the history of the Soyuz launcher that was developed by Korolev and launched more than 1,800 copies. This time, we tell the story of the Proton, the main competitor of the European launcher Ariane, which was developed by Chelomei and launched more than 400 copies. Finally, the last book of the trilogy will deal with the many developments of Yangel. In the three books, the first part deals with the history of rockets in the USSR / Russia (East) and the second part on the history of their commercialization in the West.

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The idea of autonomous systems that are able to make choices according to properties which allow them to experience, apprehend and assess their environment is becoming a reality. These systems are capable of auto-configuration and self-organization. This book presents a model for the creation of autonomous systems based on a complex substratum, made up of multiple electronic components that deploy a variety of specific features. This substratum consists of multi-agent systems which act continuously and autonomously to collect information from the environment which they then feed into the global system, allowing it to generate discerning and concrete representations of its surroundings. These systems are able to construct a so-called artificial corporeity which allows them to have a sense of self, to then behave autonomously, in a way reminiscent of living organisms.

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This book presents an up to date view of iron biogeochemistry in the ocean. It encompasses the description of iron speciation, the analytical methods used to measure the different iron forms in seawater and the different iron biogeochemical models.

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Evolutionary computation algorithms are employed to minimize functions with large number of variables. Biogeography-based optimization (BBO) is an optimization algorithm that is based on the science of biogeography, which researches the migration patterns of species. These migration paradigms provide the main logic behind BBO. Due to the cross-disciplinary nature of the optimization problems, there is a need to develop multiple approaches to tackle them and to study the theoretical reasoning behind their performance. This book explains the mathematical model of BBO algorithm and its variants created to cope with continuous domain problems (with and without constraints) and combinatorial problems.

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Complexity is an intrinsic property of natural systems. In the oceanic system, it is linked to many interactions with the atmosphere, geosphere and biosphere with which it exchanges energy and matter. Complexity of the ocean system has, at different spatial and temporal scales, hydrodynamic mechanisms of these exchanges and dynamics of elements and compounds, they are involved in biogeochemical cycles or used as tracers. By its pedagogical approach, it defines the terms, methods, techniques and analytical tools used. Then, it analyzes the consequences of climate change, future projections, human impact and the concept introduced with planktonic pelagic ecosystem component.

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This book presents an algorithm for the detection of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal in a cognitive radio context by means of a joint and iterative channel and noise estimation technique. Based on the minimum mean square criterion, it performs an accurate detection of a user in a frequency band, by achieving a quasi-optimal channel and noise variance estimation if the signal is present, and by estimating the noise level in the band if the signal is absent. Organized into three chapters, the first chapter provides the background against which the system model is presented, as well as some basics concerning the channel statistics and the transmission of an OFDM signal over a multipath channel. In Chapter 2, the proposed iterative algorithm for the noise variance and the channel estimation is detailed, and in Chapter 3, an application of the algorithm for the free-band detection is proposed. In both Chapters 2 and 3, the principle of the algorithm is presented in a simple way, and more elaborate developments are also provided. The different assumptions and assertions in the developments and the performance of the proposed method are validated through simulations, and compared to methods of the scientific literature.

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This book gives new insight on plate models in the linear elasticity framework tacking into account heterogeneities and thickness effects. It is targeted to graduate students how want to discover plate models but deals also with latest developments on higher order models. Plates models are both an ancient matter and a still active field of research. First attempts date back to the beginning of the 19th century with Sophie Germain. Very efficient models have been suggested for homogeneous and isotropic plates by Love (1888) for thin plates and Reissner (1945) for thick plates. However, the extension of such models to more general situations --such as laminated plates with highly anisotropic layers-- and periodic plates --such as honeycomb sandwich panels-- raised a number of difficulties. An extremely wide literature is accessible on these questions, from very simplistic approaches, which are very limited, to extremely elaborated mathematical theories, which might refrain the beginner. Starting from continuum mechanics concepts, this book introduces plate models of progressive complexity and tackles rigorously the influence of the thickness of the plate and of the heterogeneity. It provides also latest research results. The major part of the book deals with a new theory which is the extension to general situations of the well established Reissner-Mindlin theory. These results are completely new and give a new insight to some aspects of plate theories which were controversial till recently.

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