springer berlin heidelberg springer berlin heidelberg feb 2012 (344 Ergebnisse)

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This paper looks at the current status and role of specific commercial contract law both national and international in view of recent European contract law reform. It reviews the value and necessity of a special and separate contract law for merchants in a global market and discusses critically the terminology, doctrine and objectives which this law is based upon. For a long time the choice of transnational law rules which are often non-state law has been marginalised and made impossible in state court proceedings. The new Common European Sales Law circumvents this problem by proposing to be used as national law. International practice in commercial dispute settlement may therefore still remain at the forefront of promoting and modelling the use of transnational contract law.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 84 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The Web has become a rich source of personal information in the last few years. People twitter, blog, and chat online. Current feelings, experiences or latest news are posted. For instance, first hints to disease outbreaks, customer preferences, or political changes could be identified with this data.Surveillance or early warning systems enable such detection of changes and support humans in getting information on changing situations. However, the variety of data that could be considered for surveillance is immense, ranging from sensor-measured values to collected counts and information extracted from natural language documents.Denecke¿s objective is to introduce the multiple possibilities and facets of surveillance and its applications. She first introduces the task of surveillance and provides an overview on surveillance in various domains. Next, the various information sources that are available and could already be used by surveillance systems are summarized. In the main part of the book, her focus is on unstructured data as a source for surveillance. An overview on existing methods as well as methods to be developed in order to process this kind of data with respect to surveillance is presented. As an example application, she introduces disease surveillance using Web 2.0, including corresponding methods and challenges to be addressed. The book closes with remarks on new possibilities for surveillance gained by recent developments of the Internet and mobile communication, and with an outline of future challenges.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 88 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The rapidly growing area of nuclear medicine imaging receives only limited attention in broad-based medical dictionaries. This encyclopedic dictionary is intended to fill the gap. More than 400 entries of between one and three paragraphs are included, defining and carefully explaining terms in an appropriate degree of detail. The dictionary encompasses concepts used in planar, SPECT, and PET imaging protocols and covers both scanner operations and popular data analysis approaches. In spite of the mathematical complexities in the acquisition and analysis of images, the explanations given are easy to understand and many helpful concrete examples are provided. The book will be ideal for those who wish to obtain a rapid grasp of a concept beyond a definition of a few words but do not have the time to search the reference literature. The almost tutorial-like style accommodates the needs of students, nuclear medicine technologists, and varieties of other medical professionals.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 168 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This work is the first monograph devoted solely to Bombax ceiba, popularly known as the Red Silk Cotton Tree. Consisting of seven chapters, it covers all relevant aspects of this plant, from its historical and spiritual importance, to its botanical characterization, pharmacognostical details and ethnobiological uses, to its scientific validation in various animal and human studies. Each part of the tree is of medicinal value and possesses many novel chemical constituents such as shamimicin, bombasin, bombamalone, bombamaloside etc. along with other bioactive secondary metabolites. The book presents the chemical structures of the most important constituents and highlights various pharmacological activities, predominantly antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-mutagenic, hypoglycemic, hypotensive, hepatoprotective and fibrinolytic, which may prove to be a source for the development of a novel phyto-pharmaceutical agent to treat diabetes, heart disease and cancer. In addition, separate chapters deal with the commercial and ecological significance of B. ceiba, as well as a case study on its conservation. Numerous color illustrations are included to identify the plant and to justify its nickname, the ¿Little Bird¿s Cafeteriä.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 108 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Identifying and customizing suitable control strategies is a challenging task, especially when production systems have to cope with variable demands, forecast error, and unstable processes. The focus of this book lies on helping companies with complex and discrete production systems to tailor a production control strategy to their needs. Thereby, the mutual merits of ¿push¿ and ¿pull¿ systems are taken into account, leading to hybrid strategies. Consequently, the book addresses practitioners who are interested in looking behind the scenes and into the physics of production control. A real-life case study demonstrates the practical applicability of the presented framework.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 188 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This book contains the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on Exploring Services Science (IESS)which was held in Geneva, Switzerland, in February 2012.At the conference, researchers from all over the world presented innovative ideas, research, and applications in the design, management, and evaluation of services. This year, the main theme was the interdisciplinary aspect of services. The 22 full papers accepted for IESS were selected from 46 submissions and presented ideas and results related to innovation, services discovery, services engineering, and services management as well as the application of services in information technology, business, e-learning and public administration.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 384 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The present volume presents a part of the results of a research project launched by the European Science Foundation (ESF) in 1977. Tribute should be paid to the late Professor Aleck Chloros, Judge in the Court of the European Community, whose belief in the European ideal and enthusiasm for European cooperation and the comparative study of legal problems made him an elo quent advocate of a large-scale ESF venture into the field of com parative law. Judge Chloros had envisaged the creation of a per manent, sizable and well-equipped European institute for compa rative legal studies. The successive working parties convoked by the Executive Council of the ESF, which I had the honour of chairing from the beginning, came to the conclusion that this am bitious vision could not be realized immediately; the financial sit uation of the member organizations of the ESF also deteriorated, making a cautious approach a necessary virtue. The solution ulti mately adopted by the last of the working parties - the Ad Hoc Committee for Comparative Law -and submitted to the General Assembly of the ESF in 1979 called for the launching of four pi lot projects. In November 1980, the Assembly approved detailed plans for two of these projects. The first of these - dealing with medical responsibility - has already been presented in an impres sive volume (E. Deutsch and H. -L. Schreiber, editors, Medical Responsibility in Western Europe.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 420 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th IFIP WG 5.5 International Precision Assembly Seminar, IPAS 2012, held in Chamonix, France, in February 2012. The 15 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized into the following topical sections: micro processes and systems; handling and manipulation in assembly; tolerance management and error compensation methods; metrology and quality control; intelligent control of assembly systems; and process selection and modelling techniques.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 224 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Following the pioneering discovery of alpha clustering and of molecular resonances, the field of nuclear clustering is today one of those domains of heavy-ion nuclear physics that faces the greatest challenges, yet also contains the greatest opportunities.After many summer schools and workshops, in particular over the last decade, the community of nuclear molecular physicists has decided to collaborate in producing a comprehensive collection of lectures and tutorial reviews covering the field.This second volume follows the successful Lect. Notes Phys. 818 (Vol.1), and comprises six extensive lectures covering the following topics:Microscopic cluster modelsNeutron halo and break-up reactionsBreak-up reaction models for two- and three-cluster projectilesClustering effects within the di-nuclear modelNuclear alpha-particle condensatesClusters in nuclei: experimental perspectivesBy promoting new ideas and developments while retaining a pedagogical style of presentation throughout, these lectures will serve as both a reference and an advanced teaching manual for future courses and schools in the fields of nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 372 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -A first consequence of this difference in texture concerns the attitude we must take toward some (or perhaps most) investigations in 'applied mathe matics,' at least when the mathematics is applied to physics. Namely, those investigations have to be regarded as pure mathematics and evaluated as such. For example, some of my mathematical colleagues have worked in recent years on the Hartree-Fock approximate method for determining the structures of many-electron atoms and ions. When the method was intro duced, nearly fifty years ago, physicists did the best they could to justify it, using variational principles, intuition, and other techniques within the texture of physical reasoning. By now the method has long since become part of the established structure of physics. The mathematical theorems that can be proved now (mostly for two- and three-electron systems, hence of limited interest for physics), have to be regarded as mathematics. If they are good mathematics (and I believe they are), that is justification enough. If they are not, there is no basis for saying that the work is being done to help the physicists. In that sense, applied mathematics plays no role in today's physics. In today's division of labor, the task of the mathematician is to create mathematics, in whatever area, without being much concerned about how the mathematics is used; that should be decided in the future and by physics.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 444 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Predictive theories of phenomena involving phase change with applications in engineering are investigated in this volume, e.g.solid-liquid phase change, volume and surface damage, and phase change involving temperature discontinuities. Many other phase change phenomena such as solid-solid phase change in shape memory alloys and vapor-liquid phase change are also explored.Modeling is based on continuum thermo-mechanics. This involves a renewed principle of virtual power introducing the power of the microscopic motions responsible for phase change. This improvement yields a new equation of motion related to microscopic motions, beyond the classical equation of motion for macroscopic motions. The new theory sensibly improves the phase change modeling. For example, when warm rain falls on frozen soil, the dangerous black ice phenomenon can be comprehensively predicted. In addition, novel equations predict the evolution of clouds, which are themselves a mixture of air, liquid water and vapor.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 320 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The explosion of information technology has led to substantial growth of web-accessible linguistic data in terms of quantity, diversity and complexity. These resources become even more useful when interlinked with each other to generate network effects.The general trend of providing data online is thus accompanied by newly developing methodologies to interconnect linguistic data and metadata. This includes linguistic data collections, general-purpose knowledge bases (e.g., the DBpedia, a machine-readable edition of the Wikipedia), and repositories with specific information about languages, linguistic categories and phenomena. The Linked Data paradigm provides a framework for interoperability and access management, and thereby allows to integrate information from such a diverse set of resources.The contributions assembled in this volume illustrate the band-width of applications of the Linked Data paradigm for representative types of language resources. They cover lexical-semantic resources, annotated corpora, typological databases as well as terminology and metadata repositories. The book includes representative applications from diverse fields, ranging from academic linguistics (e.g., typology and corpus linguistics) over applied linguistics (e.g., lexicography and translation studies) to technical applications (in computational linguistics, Natural Language Processing and information technology).This volume accompanies the Workshop on Linked Data in Linguistics 2012 (LDL-2012) in Frankfurt/M., Germany, organized by the Open Linguistics Working Group (OWLG) of the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN). It assembles contributions of the workshop participants and, beyond this, it summarizes initial steps in the formation of a Linked Open Data cloud of linguistic resources, the Linguistic Linked Open Data cloud (LLOD).Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 232 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques and the finite element method (FEM) are both powerful computing tools, which are extensively used for modeling and optimizing manufacturing processes. The combination of these tools has resulted in a new flexible and robust approach as several recent studies have shown. This book aims to review the work already done in this field as well as to expose the new possibilities and foreseen trends. The book is expected to be useful for postgraduate students and researchers, working in the area of modeling and optimization of manufacturing processes.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 104 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The present book treats the science of heat conduction to an extent to which it can be taught in the specialized departments of Mechanical, Chemical or Electrical Engineering at a German Engineering University. No special prerequisites are assumed, and the mathematical methods employed draw, essentially, on the content of a normal curriculum in the depart ments mentioned above. The book is intended for adoption in conjunction with a standard lecture course or as an aid to review before examinations. It should also be found helpful to a practicing engineer in solving problems in heat conduction. As far as the readers are concerned, the book should, above all, show that exact and approximate solutions to answer questions which arise in a very large number of important, practical applications are at their disposal. Further, the book will show that in many cases it is possible to perform first estimates in a very elementary manner before engaging in the derivation of complicated analyticsolutions. It is in this way that we utilize the past results of the great mathematicians of earlier generations who have bequeathed to us a considerable stock of methods and solutions. The application of such methods is illustrated in this book with the aid of examples drawn from various branches of science and technology. In this manner, the wide field of applicability of heat transfer will be made clear.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 208 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Scanning Tunneling Microscopy I provides a unique introduction to a novel and fascinating technique that produces beautiful images of nature on an atomic scale. It is the first of three volumes that together offer a comprehensive treatment of scanning tunneling microscopy, its diverse applications, and its theoretical treatment. In this volume the reader will find a detailed description of the technique itself and of its applications to metals, semiconductors, layered materials, adsorbed molecules and superconductors. In addition to the many representative results reviewed, extensive references to original work will help to make accessible the vast body of knowledge already accumulated in this field.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 260 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Optics and optical recording have a long history. Already in the ancient temples of Egypt and in Stonehenge, optical imaging was used in religious ceremonies. As early as the 17th century, optical instruments such as the telescope and the microscope played a crucial role in the development of the natural sciences, which, in turn, altered humanity's perception of itself and the universe. Nowadays, the science of optics is not only a means of gathering information but, also, of information transfer, analysis and processing. Our reliance on optical computing has become crucial since 1982, when compact discs (CD's) first became widely available. Optical memory discs, CD ROM (read-only memory), WORM (write-once-read many) and erasable read-write discs are now produced industrially. However, WORM and erasable discs comprise only a small field of optical imaging and information processing. Recent research into optical recording introduced new horizons for optical computing and real time information processing, such as, three-dimensiomil holographic memory, time-domain holography, nonlinear optical filtering, etc. The development of these unique possibilities is conceivable only with new recording materials and novel recording processes. For such progress, one should be familiar with the 'pen and paper' of optical recording - the laser and the optical medium. Thus, this book will be a guide to novel applications of optical recording materials. The reader will find a description of the principles of optical recording and optical processing, which allow him to find novel applications for information storage and optical imaging.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 204 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This literature study presents an overview of underwater acoustic networking. It provides a background and describes the state of the art of all networking facets that are relevant for underwater applications. This report serves both as an introduction to the subject and as a summary of existing protocols, providing support and inspiration for the development of network architectures.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 96 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -JIMD Reports publishes case and short research reports in the area of inherited metabolic disorders. Case reports highlight some unusual or previously unrecorded feature relevant to the disorder, or serve as an important reminder of clinical or biochemical features of a Mendelian disorder.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 140 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Quarks are the main constituents of protons and neutrons and hence are important building blocks of all the matter that surrounds us. However, quarks have the intriguing property that they never appear as isolated single particles but only in bound states. This phenomenon is called confinement and has been a central research topic of elementary particle physics for the last few decades. In order to find the mechanism that forbids the existence of free quarks many approaches and ideas are being followed, but by now it has become clear that they are not mutually exclusive but illuminate the problem from different perspectives.Two such confinement scenarios are investigated in this thesis: Firstly, the importance of Abelian field components for the low-energy regime is corroborated, thus supporting the dual superconductor picture of confinement and secondly, the influence of the Gribov horizon on non-perturbative solutions is studied.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 152 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -In this work we derive asymptotically stabilizing control laws forelectrical power systems using two nonlinear control synthesis techniques.For this transient stabilization problem the actuator considered isa power electronic device, a controllable series capacitor (CSC).The power system is described using two different nonlinear models - the second order swing equation and the third order flux-decay model.To start with, the CSC is modeled by the injection model which isbased on the assumption that the CSC dynamics is very fast as compared to the dynamics of the power system and hence can be approximated by an algebraic equation. Here, by neglecting the CSC dynamics, the input vector $g(x)$ in the open loop system takes acomplex form - the injection model. Using this model, interconnection and damping assignment passivity-based control (IDA-PBC)methodology is demonstrated on two power systems: a single machine infinite bus (SMIB) system and a two machine system.Further, IDA-PBC is used to derive stabilizing controllers for power systems, where the CSC dynamics are included as a first order system.Next, we consider a different control methodology, immersion and invariance (I&I), to synthesize an asymptotically stabilizing control law for the SMIB system with a CSC. The CSC is described by a first order system. As a generalization of I&I, we incorporate the power balance algebraic constraints in the load bus to theSMIB swing equation, and extend the design philosophy to aclass of differential algebraic systems. The proposed result is then demonstrated on another example: a two-machinesystem with two load buses and a CSC. The controller performances are validated through simulations for all cases.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 104 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The two volume set LNCS 7133 and LNCS 7134 constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Applied Parallel and Scientific Computing, PARA 2010, held in Reykjavík, Iceland, in June 2010. These volumes contain three keynote lectures, 29 revised papers and 45 minisymposia presentations arranged on the following topics: cloud computing, HPC algorithms, HPC programming tools, HPC in meteorology, parallel numerical algorithms, parallel computing in physics, scientific computing tools, HPC software engineering, simulations of atomic scale systems, tools and environments for accelerator based computational biomedicine, GPU computing, high performance computing interval methods, real-time access and processing of large data sets, linear algebra algorithms and software for multicore and hybrid architectures in honor of Fred Gustavson on his 75th birthday, memory and multicore issues in scientific computing - theory and praxis, multicore algorithms and implementations for application problems, fast PDE solvers and a posteriori error estimates, and scalable tools for high performance computing.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 508 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This book is based on the course in theoretical nuclear physics that has been given by the author for some years at the T. G. Shevchenko Kiev State University. This version is supplemented and revised to include new results obtained after 1971 and 1975 when the first and second editions were published. This text is intended as an introduction to the nonrelativistic theory of po tential scattering. The analysis is based on the scattering matrix concept where the relationship between the scattering matrix and observable physical quantities is considered. The stationary formulation of the scattering problem is presented; particle wave functions in the external field are obtained. A formulation of the optical theorem is given as well as a discussion on time inversion and the reci procity theorem. Analytic properties of the scattering matrix, dispersion relations, and complex moments are analyzed. The dispersion relations for an arbitrary di rection scattering amplitude are proven, and analytic properties of the amplitude in the plane of the complex cosine of the scattering angle are studied in detail.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 312 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Leading workers in the field of human reproduction provideboth basic knowledge and useful practical information in this book about the most critical phase in the development of a new human being: the first twelve weeks of life. The period from fertilization and implantation to the end of the first trimester is still insufficiently understood and marks a new frontier. The knowledge necessary for applying our present diagnostic capabilities and for venturing into the problematic areas of fertilization technology and embryonic treatment is made easily available in this comprehensive textbook. The book is divided into two parts. The first presents basic information about physiology, anatomy, in vivo investigations, biochemistry and legal aspects. The second part focuses on pregnancy development, monitoring and the clinical diagnosis and management of disorders in the early stages of life. A full section is devoted to assisted conception and the newest possibilities in fertilizationtechnologies, whereby the ethical aspects are also discussed.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 576 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Once we have accepted a precise replacement of the concept of algo rithm, it becomes possible to attempt the problem whether there exist well-defined collections of problems which cannot be handled by algo rithms, and if that is the case, to give concrete cases of this kind. Many such investigations were carried out during the last few decades. The undecidability of arithmetic and other mathematical theories was shown, further the unsolvability of the word problem of group theory. Many mathematicians consider these results and the theory on which they are based to be the most characteristic achievements of mathe matics in the first half of the twentieth century. If we grant the legitimacy of the suggested precise replacements of the concept of algorithm and related concepts, then we can say that the mathematicians have shown by strictly mathematical methods that there exist mathematical problems which cannot be dealt with by the methods of calculating mathematics. In view of the important role which mathematics plays today in our conception of the world this fact is of great philosophical interest. Post speaks of a natural law about the 'limitations of the mathematicizing power of Homo Sapiens'. Here we also find a starting point for the discussion of the question, what the actual creative activity of the mathematician consists in. In this book we shall give an introduction to the theory of algorithms.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 264 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Carrier communication over power lines, like carrier traffic over postal lines, has a tradition of about 50 years. It has become a vital element in electric system operation. Being restricted to power networks, it has a comparatively limited scope. Nevertheless, great efforts are being ex to keep pace with the demands made pended on technical advancement of both power and communication engineering. As in previous editions of this book, it is endeavored in the fourth edition to familiarize the man in the field with the fundamental concepts on which this technique and its practical application are based. The physical and electrical characteristics of the equipment involved are de scribed in a general way. For the sake of clarity, the author has refrained from giving a detailed account or illustrations of special versions, espe cially as the differences between the equipment supplied by the various manufacturers are so small. This is due to the use of transistors instead of tubes and to the universally adopted plug-in module construction technique. In the load dispatching plants of power supply networks, tele metering systems are turning more and more to data engineering methods and equipment to lighten the task of network management. Consequently, at certain points in the text, topics concerning remote data processing are treated, emphasis being placed on transmission channels operating at a considerably higher speed than was usual 10 years ago.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 196 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The study of the structure of Lie algebras over arbitrary fields is now a little more than thirty years old. The first papers, to my know ledge, which undertook this study as an end in itself were those of JACOBSON (' Rational methods in the theory of Lie algebras ') in the Annals, and of LANDHERR ('Uber einfache Liesche Ringe') in the Hamburg Abhandlungen, both in 1935. Over fields of characteristic zero, these thirty years have seen the ideas and results inherited from LIE, KILLING, E. CARTAN and WEYL developed and given new depth, meaning and elegance by many contributors. Much of this work is presented in [47, 64, 128 and 234] of the bibliography. For those who find the rationalization for the study of Lie algebras in their connections with Lie groups, satisfying counterparts to these connections have been found over general non-modular fields, with the substitution of the formal groups of BOCHNER [40] (see also DIEUDONNE [108]), or that of the algebraic linear groups of CHEVALLEY [71], for the usual Lie group. In particular, the relation with algebraic linear groups has stimulated the study of Lie algebras of linear transformations. When one admits to consideration Lie algebras over a base field of positive characteristic (such are the algebras to which the title of this monograph refers), he encounters a new and initially confusing scene.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 180 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The German health care system is on a collision course with budget realities. Costs are high and rising, and quality problems are becoming ever more apparent. Decades of reforms have produced little change to these troubling trends.Why has Germany failed to solve these cost and quality problems The reason is that Germany has not set value for patients as the overarching goal, defined as the patient health outcomes achieved per euro expended.This book lays out an action agenda to move Germany to a high value system: care must be reorganized around patients and their medical conditions, providers must compete around the outcomes they achieve, health plans must take an active role in improving subscriber health, and payment must shift to models that reward excellent providers. Also, private insurance must be integrated in the risk-pooling system.These steps are practical and achievable, as numerous examples in the book demonstrate. Moving to a value-based health care system is the only way for Germany to continue to ensure access to excellent health care for everyone.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 324 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -These notes provide an introduction to the theory of spherical harmonics in an arbitrary dimension as well asan overview of classical and recent results on some aspects of the approximation of functions by spherical polynomials and numerical integration over the unit sphere. The notes are intended for graduate students in the mathematical sciences and researchers who are interested in solving problems involving partial differential and integral equations on the unit sphere, especially on the unit sphere in three-dimensional Euclidean space. Some related work for approximation on the unit disk in the plane is also briefly discussed, with results being generalizable to the unit ball in more dimensions.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 256 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This graduate-level, course-based text is devoted to the 3+1 formalism of general relativity, which also constitutes the theoretical foundations of numerical relativity. The book starts by establishing the mathematical background (differential geometry, hypersurfaces embedded in space-time, foliation of space-time by a family of space-like hypersurfaces), and then turns to the 3+1 decomposition of the Einstein equations, giving rise to the Cauchy problem with constraints, which constitutes the core of 3+1 formalism. The ADM Hamiltonian formulation of general relativity is also introduced at this stage. Finally, the decomposition of the matter and electromagnetic field equations is presented, focusing on the astrophysically relevant cases of a perfect fluid and a perfect conductor (ideal magnetohydrodynamics). The second part of the book introduces more advanced topics: the conformal transformation of the 3-metric on each hypersurface and the corresponding rewriting of the 3+1 Einstein equations, the Isenberg-Wilson-Mathews approximation to general relativity, global quantities associated with asymptotic flatness (ADM mass, linear and angular momentum) and with symmetries (Komar mass and angular momentum). In the last part, the initial data problem is studied, the choice of spacetime coordinates within the 3+1 framework is discussed and various schemes for the time integration of the 3+1 Einstein equations are reviewed. The prerequisites are those of a basic general relativity course with calculations and derivations presented in detail, making this text complete and self-contained. Numerical techniques are not covered in this book.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 312 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Glass production is thought to date to ~2500 BC and had found numerous uses by the height of the Roman Empire. Yet the modern view of glass-based chemical apparatus (beakers, flasks, stills, etc.) was quite limited due to a lack of glass durability under rapid temperature changes and chemical attack. This ¿brief¿ gives an overview of the history and chemistry of glass technology from its origins in antiquity to its dramatic expansion in the 13th century, concluding with its impact on society in general, particularly its effect on chemical practices.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 96 pp. Englisch.