springer berlin heidelberg springer berlin heidelberg apr 2001 (41 Ergebnisse)

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Riemannian, symplectic and complex geometry are often studied by means ofsolutions to systems ofnonlinear differential equations, such as the equa tions of geodesics, minimal surfaces, pseudoholomorphic curves and Yang Mills connections. For studying such equations, a new unified technology has been developed, involving analysis on infinite-dimensional manifolds. A striking applications of the new technology is Donaldson's theory of 'anti-self-dual' connections on SU(2)-bundles over four-manifolds, which applies the Yang-Mills equations from mathematical physics to shed light on the relationship between the classification of topological and smooth four-manifolds. This reverses the expected direction of application from topology to differential equations to mathematical physics. Even though the Yang-Mills equations are only mildly nonlinear, a prodigious amount of nonlinear analysis is necessary to fully understand the properties of the space of solutions. . At our present state of knowledge, understanding smooth structures on topological four-manifolds seems to require nonlinear as opposed to linear PDE's. It is therefore quite surprising that there is a set of PDE's which are even less nonlinear than the Yang-Mills equation, but can yield many of the most important results from Donaldson's theory. These are the Seiberg-Witte~ equations. These lecture notes stem from a graduate course given at the University of California in Santa Barbara during the spring quarter of 1995. The objective was to make the Seiberg-Witten approach to Donaldson theory accessible to second-year graduate students who had already taken basic courses in differential geometry and algebraic topology.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 136 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Astronomy is the oldest and most fundamental of the natural sciences. From the early beginnings of civilization astronomers have attempted to explain not only what the Universe is and how it works, but also how it started, how it evolved to the present day, and how it will develop in the future. The author, a well-known astronomer himself, describes the evolution of astronomical ideas, briefly discussing most of the instrumental developments. Using numerous figures to elucidate the mechanisms involved, the book starts with the astronomical ideas of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian philosophers, moves on to the Greek period, and then to the golden age of astronomy, i.e. to Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, and ends with modern theories of cosmology. Written with undergraduate students in mind, this book gives a fascinating survey of astronomical thinking.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 612 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Professor Paul Welfens offers a unique and timely approach to the major task of stabilizing and integrating the Balkans. His book is one of the first to assess in depth the progress of reconstruction and to evaluate the success of coordination on the part of various Western governments and international organizations. Professor Welfens sees an intimate connection, in the sense of equal responsibility, between internal reform, restructuring, and revitalization in the region and Western financing, ideas, and programs. Professor Welfens has coined the term 'networked approach' to capture the strategy of Western cooperation among multiple actors, particularly through the mechanism of the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe. In addition to demonstrating where the Stability Pact works well, he identifies problem areas, with respect to both inconsistencies in donor policies and coordination and significant structural variations among Balkan countries and entities. He also flags concerns about EU enlargement overstretch. This book has emerged from a bi-national, cross-disciplinary research project at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies on 'Cooperation and Competition: American, European Union, and German Policies in the Balkans' that explores the opportunities and obstacles regarding cooperation in the political, economic and military realms. The project - financed by a grant from the DaimlerChrysler-Fonds im Stifterverband fur die Deutsche Wissenschaft examines the implications of lessons learned in the Balkans for transatlantic relations, an area Professor Welfens discusses with some concern about potential conflicts. Additional individual and collective products from the AICGS research project will be forthcoming during 2001.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 196 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Evolutionary Computation (EC) is a rapidly expanding eld of computer science in which problem solving, optimization, and machine learning techniques ins- red by genetics and natural selection are studied. In recent years, a number of studies and results have been reported in the literature which have disclosed the potentials of EC techniques and shown their capability to solve hard problems in several domains. This volume contains the proceedings of EvoWorkshops 2001, an event - cluding the First European Workshop on Evolutionary Computation in Com- natorial Optimization (EvoCOP), the Second European Workshop on Evolut- nary Aeronautics (EvoFlight), the Third European Workshop on Evolutionary Computation in Image Analysis and Signal Processing (EvoIASP), the First - ropean Workshop on Evolutionary Learning (EvoLearn), and the Second Eu- pean Workshop on Evolutionary Scheduling and Timetabling (EvoSTIM). These workshops were held in Como, Italy, on 18 and 19 April 2001, as part of - roGP 2001, the Fourth European Conference on Genetic Programming. EvoCOP focuses on applications of evolutionary algorithms and related h- ristic search methods to various combinatorial optimization problems. It also covers general methodological aspects of such algorithms like operator analyses, search dynamics, tness landscapes, and algorithmic comparisons, which are the driving force in gaining a better understanding of evolutionary search and hence support the design of e ective evolutionary algorithms for combinatorial op- mization problems of practical relevance. EvoFlight is aimed at bringing together researchers and industrial parties to discuss the use of evolutionary computation in aerospace. 536 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The papers in this volume were presented at the 6th International Meeting on DNA Based Computers, organized by the Leiden Center for Natural Computing and held from June 13 to June 17, 2000 at The Lorentz Center, University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands. DNA Computing is a novel and fascinating development at the interface of computer science and molecular biology. It has emerged in recent years, not simply as an exciting technology for information processing, but also as a catalyst for knowledge transfer between information processing, nanotechnology, and biology. This area of research has the potential to change our understanding of the theory and practice of computing. The call for papers and poster presentations sought contributions of original research and technical expositions in all areas of bio-computation. A total of 33 abstracts were submitted of which 16 were accepted for presentation and included in the proceedings. The papers were selected by the program committee based on originality and quality of research and on relevance to the bio-computing eld. Invited talks were given by Masami Hagiya (Tokyo University), Laura La- weber (Princeton University), John Reif (Duke University), Thomas Schmidt (Leiden University), and Lloyd M. Smith (University of Wisconsin). Invited - pers based on the talks by Hagiya and Reif are included in this volume, along with the contributed papers. Additional tutorials were held on the rst and last days of the conference. 288 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Among the many changes brought by the Internet is the emergence of electronic commerce over the Web. E-commerce activities, such as the online exchange of information, services, and products, are opening up completely new opportunities for business, at new levels of productivity and profitability. In parallel with the emergence of e-commerce, intelligent software agents as entities capable of independent action in open, unpredictable environments have matured into a promising new technology. Quite naturally, e-commerce agents hold great promise for exploiting the Internet's full potential as an electronic marketplace. The 20 coherently written chapters in this book by leading researchers and professionals present the state of the art in agent-mediated e-commerce. Researchers, professionals, and advanced students interested in e-commerce or agent technology will find this book an indispensable source of information and reference.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 360 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -technologycoulddo,oure ortsincomputerizingpayrollandaccountingapp- cationsinrealityseemedpunyanddisappointing. TheWeb,ontheotherhand, didnotseemshackled,inawaythatearlycomputingwas,tothesebure- craticandunimaginativewaysofconductinghumanandorganizationala airs. Itseemedthattheorganizational,spatial,andphysicalconstraintswereabout toloosen,ifnotdisappear,altogether. Andyet,whenwelookedaroundatthewayWebsitesandapplicationswere beingdeveloped,itseemedtousthattheearlypatternofhaphazarddev- opment,minimaltesting,andlackofattentiontothemaintenanceissuesthat characterisedthe¿softwarecrisis¿werestillverymuchwithus. Itwasasthough the¿newgeneration¿insistedonmakingthesamemistakesasitsparents! Thisfeelingofd¿ej`avuledustoquestionthenatureofWeb-basedandW- relatedactivities. Ofcourse,wewerenotalone,aswesoondiscovered. The resultiswhatisbeingcalledWebEngineeringwhichhadits rstintroduction inaworkshopattheSeventhWorldWideWeb(WWW7)conferenceinBrisbane in1998. IthasnowbecomeaserieswithmoreworkshopsatWWW8(Toronto, VI Preface 1999)andWWW9(Amsterdam,2000),andalsoattheInternationalConference onSoftwareEngineering(ICSE99)in1999inLosAngelesandICSE2000in Limerick,Ireland. AnotherworkshopisscheduledforWWW10inHongKong inMay2001. Themainpurposebehindtheseworkshopshasbeentoshareandpoolthe collectiveexperienceofpeople,bothacademicsandpractitioners,whoare- tivelyworkingonWeb-basedsystems. Theworkshopshavegenerallyconsisted ofkeynoteaddresses,peer-reviewedcontributedpapers,andsessionsofopen discussions. About This Book Inthisvolume,weprovideaconsolidatedviewofrecentwork,highlightingdev- opmentsandadvancesintheareaofWebEngineering. Thisselectionofpapers drawsmainlyfromthelastthreeworkshops,heldinconjunctionwithICSE1999, WWW9,andICSE2000. Wealsopresentalistofadditional,usefulresourceson WebEngineeringsuchasbooks,specialissues,articles,andWebsites. Ouraim istoprovideabookthatwillbeaconvenientandusefulreferencetoallthe researchers,practitioners,andstudentsinterestedinWebapplicationdevel- ment.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 376 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Information Retrieval (IR) is concerned with the effective and efficient retrieval of information based on its semantic content. The central problem in IR is the quest to find the set of relevant documents, among a large collection containing the information sought, satisfying a user's information need usually expressed in a natural language query. Documents may be objects or items in any medium: text, image, audio, or indeed a mixture of all three. This book presents 12 revised lectures given at the Third European Summer School in Information Retrieval, ESSIR 2000, held at the Villa Monastero, Varenna, Italy, in September 2000. The first part of the book is devoted to the foundation of IR and related areas; the second part on advanced topics addresses various current issues, from usability aspects to Web searching and browsing.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 320 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -and for making sure that everything ran smoothly during the workshop.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 356 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Graph drawing comprises all aspects of visualizing structural relations between objects. The range of topics dealt with extends from graph theory, graph algorithms, geometry, and topology to visual languages, visual perception, and information visualization, and to computer-human interaction and graphics design. This monograph gives a systematic overview of graph drawing and introduces the reader gently to the state of the art in the area. The presentation concentrates on algorithmic aspects, with an emphasis on interesting visualization problems with elegant solutions. Much attention is paid to a uniform style of writing and presentation, consistent terminology, and complementary coverage of the relevant issues throughout the 10 chapters.This tutorial is ideally suited as an introduction for newcomers to graph drawing. Ambitioned practitioners and researchers active in the area will find it a valuable source of reference and information.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 332 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This book is the nal outcome of VECPAR 2000 ¿ 4th International Meeting on Vector and Parallel Processing. VECPAR constitutes a series of conferences, which have been organized by the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto since 1993, with the main objective of disseminating new knowledge on parallel computing. Readership of This Book The book is aimed at an audience of researchers and graduate students in a broad range of scienti c areas, including not only computer science, but also applied mathematics and numerical analysis, physics, and engineering. Book Plan From a total of 66 papers selected on the basis of extended abstracts for p- sentation at the conference, a subset of 34 papers were chosen during a second review process leading to their inclusion in the book, together with the invited talks. The book contains a total of 40 papers organized into 6 chapters, where each may appeal to people in di erent but still related scienti c areas. All ch- ters, with the exception of Chapter 6, are initiated by a short text, providing a quick overview of the organization and papers in the chapter. The 13 papers in Chapter 1 cover the aspects related to the use of multiple processors. Operating systems, languages and software tools for scheduling, and code transformation are the topics included in this chapter, initiated by the talk on computing over the Internet, entitled Grid Computing,byIan Foster.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 600 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This book includes the papers presented at the fifth International Conference on Application of Natural Language to Information Systems (NLDB 2000) which was held in Versailles (France) on June 28-30. Following NLDB95 in Versailles, NLDB96 i n Amsterdam, NLDB97 i n Vancouver, and NLDB99 i n Klagenfurt, NLDB 2000 was a forum for exchanging new research results and trends on the benefits of integrating Natural Language resources in Information System Engineering. Since the first NLDB workshop in 1995 it has become apparent that each aspect of an information system life cycle may be improved by natural language techniques: database design (specification, validation, conflict resolution), database query languages, and application programming that use new software engineering research (natural language program specifications). As information systems are now evolving into the communication area, the term databases should be considered in the broader sense of information and communication systems. The main new trend in NLDB 2000 is related to the WEB wave: WEB querying, WEB answering, and information retrieval. Among 47 papers submitted from 18 countries, the program committee selected 29 papers to be presented during the conference. Besides these regular papers, two invited talks (given by Pr. Reind P. van de Riet and Pr. Maurice Gross), and a set of posters and demonstrations are also included in these proceedings.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 388 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Scalable parallel systems or, more generally, distributed memory systems offer a challenging model of computing and pose fascinating problems regarding compiler optimization, ranging from language design to run time systems. Research in this area is foundational to many challenges from memory hierarchy optimizations to communication optimization.This unique, handbook-like monograph assesses the state of the art in the area in a systematic and comprehensive way. The 21 coherent chapters by leading researchers provide complete and competent coverage of all relevant aspects of compiler optimization for scalable parallel systems. The book is divided into five parts on languages, analysis, communication optimizations, code generation, and run time systems. This book will serve as a landmark source for education, information, and reference to students, practitioners, professionals, and researchers interested in updating their knowledge about or active in parallel computing.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 812 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Typed Lambda Calculi and Applications, TLCA 2001, held in Krakow, Poland in May 2001. The 28 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 55 submissions. The volume reports research results on all current aspects of typed lambda calculi. Among the topics addressed are type systems, subtypes, coalgebraic methods, pi-calculus, recursive games, various types of lambda calculi, reductions, substitutions, normalization, linear logic, cut-elimination, prelogical relations, and mu calculus.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 448 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Based on a suitably defined coordination model distinguishing between objective (inter-agent) coordination and subjective (intra-agent) coordination, this book addresses the engineering of multi-agent systems and thus contributes to closing the gap between research and applications in agent technology. After reviewing the state of the art, the author introduces the general coordination model ECM and the corresponding object-oriented coordination language STL++. The practicability of ECM/STL++ is illustrated by the simulation of a particular collective robotics application and the automation of an e-commerce trading system.Situated at the intersection of behavior-based artificial intelligence and concurrent and distributed systems, this monograph is of relevance to the agent R&D community approaching agent technology from the distributed artificial intelligence point of view as well as for the distributed systems community.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 168 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The second International Symposium on Electronic Commerce was held in Hong Kong, April 2001, in conjunction with the fourth International Workshop on the Technological Challenges of Electronic Commerce. This symposium belongs to the- commerce conference series started in 1998 in Toronto, Canada. Since then, every year, there has been an international workshop on the technological challenges of electronic commerce, and every other year, in conjunction with the workshop, an international symposium on electronic commerce is held. The following workshops have been held so far. ¿ The first International Workshop on the Technological Challenges of Electronic Commerce was held in September 1998, in Toronto, Canada. ¿ The second International Workshop on the Technological Challenges of Electronic Commerce was held in May 1999, in Beijing, China. ¿ The third International Workshop on the Technological Challenges of Electronic Commerce was held in June 2000, in Waterloo, Canada ¿ The fourth International Workshop on the Technological Challenges of Electronic Commerce was held in April 2001, in Hong Kong. The first International Symposium on Electronic Commerce was held in Beijing, China, May 1999, in conjunction with the second International Workshop on the Technological Challenges of Electronic Commerce.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 204 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -On the 23rd of April, 2001, the 6th Workshop on High-Level Parallel P- gramming Models and Supportive Environments (LCTES¿98) was held in San Francisco. HIPShas been held over the past six years in conjunction with IPDPS, the Internation Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium. The HIPSworkshop focuses on high-level programming of networks of wo- stations, computing clusters and of massively-parallel machines. Its goal is to bring together researchers working in the areas of applications, language design, compilers, system architecture and programming tools to discuss new devel- ments in programming such systems. In recent years, several standards have emerged with an increasing demand of support for parallel and distributed processing. On one end, message-passing frameworks, such as PVM, MPI and VIA, provide support for basic commu- cation. On the other hand, distributed object standards, such as CORBA and DCOM, provide support for handling remote objects in a client-server fashion but also ensure certain guarantees for the quality of services. The key issues for the success of programming parallel and distributed en- ronments are high-level programming concepts and e ciency. In addition, other quality categories have to be taken into account, such as scalability, security, bandwidth guarantees and fault tolerance, just to name a few. Today¿s challenge is to provide high-level programming concepts without s- ri cing e ciency. This is only possible by carefully designing for those concepts and by providing supportive programming environments that facilitate program development and tuning.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 152 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Constraints provide a declarative way of representing infinite sets of data. They are well suited for combining different logical or programming paradigms as has been known for constraint logic programming since the 1980s and more recently for functional programming. The use of constraints in automated deduction is more recent and has proved to be very successful, moving the control from the meta-level to the constraints, which are now first-class objects.This monograph-like book presents six thoroughly reviewed and revised lectures given by leading researchers at the summer school organized by the ESPRIT CCL Working Group in Gif-sur-Yvette, France, in September 1999. The book offers coherently written chapters on constraints and constraint solving, constraint solving on terms, combining constraint solving, constraints and theorem proving, functional and constraint logic programming, and building industrial applications.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 328 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -hereafter calledvolume the of In a volume study previous (H6non 1997, I), the restricted initiated. families in problem (We generating three body was recallthat families defined asthe limits offamilies of are periodic generating determinationof orbitsfor Themain wasfoundto lieinthe 4 problem p 0.) bifurcation wheretwo the betweenthebranches ata ormore orbit, junctions A solutionto this was familiesof orbits intersect. partial problem generating and sidesof theuseofinvariants: Manysimple symmetries passage. givenby In the evolution of the bifurcations can be solved in this way. particular, orbits be described almost nine natural families of can completely. periodic become i.e.when thenumber of asthe bifurcations morecomplex, However, fails. the bifurcation orbit themethod families increases, passingthrough of This volume describes another to the a approach problem, consisting in of bifurcation ofthe families the a analysis vicinity detailed, quantitative used in Vol. I. orbit. This moreworkthan the requires qualitativeapproach in at to deter it has the of least, However, advantage allowing us, principle branches Infact it morethanthat: minein allcaseshowthe are joined. gives almost all the first order we will see in asymptotic approxima that, cases, the families in the ofthe bifurcation can be derived. tion of neighbourhood found in with This a comparison numerically allows, particular, quantitative families. and The 11 dealswiththerelevant definitions Chapter generalequations. of describedin 12 16.The ofbifurcations 1 is Chaps. study type quantitative it is described in 17 23. 3 of 2 ismore Chaps. Type analysis type involved; its hadnot been at thetime of isevenmore completed complex; analysis yet writing. 320 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, PAKDD 2001, held in Hong Kong, China in April 2001.The 38 revised full papers and 22 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 152 submissions. The book offers topical sections on Web mining, text mining, applications and tools, concept hierarchies, feature selection, interestingness, sequence mining, spatial and temporal mining, association mining, classification and rule induction, clustering, and advanced topics and new methods. 620 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Concurrency and distribution have become the dominant paradigm and concern in computer science. Despite the fact that much of the early research in object-oriented programming focused on sequential systems, objects are a natural unit of distribution and concurrency - as elucidated early on by research on the Actor model. Thus, models and theories of concurrency, the oldest one being Petri nets, and their relation to objects are an attractive topic of study.This book presents state-of-the-art results on Petri nets and concurrent object-oriented programming in a coherent and competent way. The 24 thoroughly reviewed and revised papers are organized in three sections. The first consists of long papers, each presenting a detailed approach to integrating Petri nets and object-orientation. Section II includes shorter papers with emphasis on concrete examples to demonstrate the approach. Finally, section III is devoted to papers which significantly build on the Actor model of computation.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 552 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -partialdifferentialequations ,variationalinequal ities,complementarity problemsand more generally, equilibriumproblems. The classes ofgeneralizedmonotonemappingsare more or lessrelatedto the classes ofgeneralizedfunctionsvia differentiation or subdifferentiation procedures.They are also link edvia severalothermeans.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 428 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -When I joined Schlumberger in 1982 I was surprised to find very few geologists in the company, and the few there were worked more as log analysts than geol ogists. The reason for this became soon clear to me: Except for the dipmeter there was no tool, and no other service, that was considered 'geological'. Schlumber ger geologists were supposed to work with dipmeters, and, if they had a taste for it, the natural gamma-ray spectroscopy logs. It turned out that my timing was fortunate. At Schlumberger's research center, in Ridgefield, Connecticut, a prototype electrical imaging tool had been designed, and after having spent three years in the Middle East I was transferred there. The first field test results were just coming in, and the images were startling. We could see geological details that nobody had ever seen from a log: cross-beds, unconformities, pebbles, fractures, folds, faults. No cores were needed to confirm the reality of these data; they were too real to be artifacts.Springer-Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 388 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -For many decades, hybrid devices have been used to connect 2-wire local circuits and 4-wire long distance circuits in telephone lines. This leads to a weIl known problem, whereby echoes are generated. The delay introduced by telecommunication satellites exacerbated this problem and the need for new methods of echo control soon became obvious. The best solution to date for solving this problem was invented in the 1960s at Bell Labs by Kelly, Logan, and Sondhi, and consists of identifying the echo path generated by the hybrid by means of an adaptive filter, a technique that became known as an echo canceler. The echo canceler allowed full-duplex communication which was not possible with older echo suppression techniques. Later, with the development of hands-free teleconferencing systems, an other echo problem appeared; but this time the echo was due to the coupling between the loudspeaker and microphone. It is not surprising that the same solution was proposed to solve this problem, and most of today's telecon ferencing systems have an acoustic echo canceler. More recently, attention has been given to the very interesting problem of multichannel acoustic echo cancellation, which leads to more exciting applications that take advantage of our binaural auditory system.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 240 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The idea for a book dealing specifically with elementary processes in silicon oxidation was formulated after a stimulating symposium that I organized at the American Physical Society meeting in March, 1998. The symposium, en titled 'Dynamics of silicon etching and oxidation', explored the mechanisms governing silicon oxidation. With three experimental talks (Hines, Weldon and Gibson) and two theoretical presentations (Pasquarello and Pantelides), it provided a good cross-section of the recent efforts to characterize the in terfacial region of silicon oxide grown on silicon. The novelty of this work comes from the present experimental and theo retical advances that allow the investigation of the formation of ultra-thin silicon oxides. Although structural characterization of bulk silicon oxides and electrical characterization of thin oxides and their interfaces with silicon have produced an extensive body of work over more than forty years, a mechanis tic understanding of the initial oxidation processes has remained elusive. In the past, both the experimental and theoretical efforts have been thwarted by the complexity of dealing with the formation of a mostly amorphous oxide on a crystalline substrate. In this book we present a survey of the state-of-the-art methods, both ex perimental and theoretical, specifically dealing with the issue of amorphous dielectric growth. Each chapter critically reviews and cross-correlates infor mation provided by experimental techniques, such as microscopy, spectro scopy, or scattering, with results obtained using theoretical methods, such as ab initio electronic structure calculations, molecular dynamics, and Monte Carlo simulations.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 280 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Graham Clarke and Moss Madden 1. 1 Background In the mid 1990s there were a number of papers in regional science that questioned the relevance and purpose of the entire sub-discipline. Bailly and Coffey (1994) for example, talked of 'regional science in crisis'. They argued that there were two fundamental problems. First, regional science was too theoretical in the sense that many of its products were models that could neither be calibrated (too complex) or operationalised (too abstract) in the real world. They suggested that regional science had not sufficiently demonstrated that it can address real-world problems and subsequently lacked a focus on relevant policy issues. Second, they argued that regional science had become too narrow in focus and had moved away too far from real people and their daily concerns or struggles in life. This was not the first time we had witnessed these sorts of arguments, both from outside the discipline and from within. Sayer (1976) was perhaps the first to argue for a shift from a model-based focus in regional science to one based on political economy. Breheny (1984) criticised the 'deep ignorance among regional scientists of the nature of practical policy making and implementation' (see also Rodwin (1987) for similar views in the mid 1980s). Such self-reflection is a feature of many disciplines as they reach maturity. There have been many similar reflections in geography (Johnston 1996, Barnes 1996) and economics (see the collection in the January edition of the Economic Journal 1991).Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 376 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The northern North Atlantic is one of the regions most sensitive to past and present global changes. This book integrates the results of an interdisciplinary project studying the properties of the Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian Seas and the processes of pelagic and benthic particle formation, particle transport, and deposition in the deep-sea sediments. Ice-related and biogeochemical processes have been investigated to decipher the spatial and temporal variability of the production and fate of organic carbon in this region. Isotopic stratigraphy, microfossil assemblages and paleotemperatures are combined to reconstruct paleoceanographic conditions and to model past climatic changes in the Late Quaternary. The Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian Seas can now be considered one of the best studied subbasins of the world`s oceans.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 512 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Crystal growth and nucleation are treated in the specialized literature in different ways depending on the discipline in question (physics, physical chemistry, chemical engineering) and on the theoretical approaches (atomistic vs continuum approach as regards crystal growth, phase vs chemical concept as regards nucleation). This book relates the different approaches to one another, giving preference to atomistic treatments by the methods of statistical thermodynamics and chemical kinetics. This unified approach also facilitates an understanding of some related phenomena of surface physics, such as adsorption, wetting etc. The book allows research novices and graduate students to get an insight into the physics of the phenomena and to interpret some of the experimental results.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 388 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Dark matter research is one of the most fascinating and active fields among current high-profile scientific endeavours. It holds the key to all major breakthroughs to come in the fields of cosmology and astroparticle physics. The present volume is particularly concerned with the sources and the detection of dark matter and dark energy in the universe and will prove to be an invaluable research tool for all scientists who work in this field.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 572 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Semiconductor Surfaces and Interfaces deals with structural and electronic properties of semiconductor surfaces and interfaces. The first part introduces the general aspects of space-charge layers, of clean-surface and adatom-induced surfaces states, and of interface states. It is followed by a presentation of experimental results on clean and adatom-covered surfaces which are explained in terms of simple physical and chemical concepts. Where available, results of more refined calculations are considered. This third edition has been thoroughly revised and updated. In particular it now includes an extensive discussion of the band lineup at semiconductor interfaces. The unifying concept is the continuum of interface-induced gap states.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 572 pp. Englisch.