Ryszard Kapuscinski is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's preeminent journalists, demonstrating an almost mystical ability to discover the odd or overlooked and incorporating these sometimes surreal details into narratives that go beyond mere reportage and enter the realm of literature. Another Day of Life" is Kapuscinski's dramatic account of the three months he spent in Angola at the beginning of its decades' long civil war. The capital, Luanda, is occupied only by those not fortunate enough to flee. When even the dogs abandoned by the Europeans leave, Kapuscinski decides to go to the front, where the wrong greeting could cost your life and where young soldiers-from Cuba, Russia, South Africa, Portugal-are fighting a war with global repercussions. With harrowing detail, Kapuscinski shows us the peculiar brutality of a country divided by its newfound freedom. Translated from the Polish by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand.
Insightful and important.... A readable, timely and valuable contribution to the understanding of the revolutionary forces at work in Iran.... The reader almost becomes a participant." —The New York Times Book Review In Shah of Shahs Kapuscinski brings a mythographer's perspective and a novelist's virtuosity to bear on the overthrow of the last Shah of Iran, one of the most infamous of the United States' client-dictators, who resolved to transform his country into "a second America in a generation," only to be toppled virtually overnight. From his vantage point at the break-up of the old regime, Kapuscinski gives us a compelling history of conspiracy, repression, fanatacism, and revolution. Translated from the Polish by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand.
This book presents a concise introduction to piecewise deterministic Markov processes (PDMPs), with particular emphasis on their applications to biological models. Further, it presents examples of biological phenomena, such as gene activity and population growth, where different types of PDMPs appear: continuous time Markov chains, deterministic processes with jumps, processes with switching dynamics, and point processes. Subsequent chapters present the necessary tools from the theory of stochastic processes and semigroups of linear operators, as well as theoretical results concerning the long-time behaviour of stochastic semigroups induced by PDMPs and their applications to biological models. As such, the book offers a valuable resource for mathematicians and biologists alike. The first group will find new biological models that lead to interesting and often new mathematical questions, while the second can observe how to include seemingly disparate biological proc esses into a unified mathematical theory, and to arrive at revealing biological conclusions. The target audience primarily comprises of researchers in these two fields, but the book will also benefit graduate students.
Considering the increased need to test and develop ventilation both for normobaric and hyperbaric use in underwater technology industries (diving equipment, submarines and other underwater facilities), mining, and other relevant industries, this book presents a complete study in the field of normobaric and hyperbaric ventilation. It focuses on development and verification of the research-based mathematical modeling approach for deterministic modeling of ventilation processes, both for objects with semi-closed and closed circulation of breathing gas. It also proposes validated analytical models of ventilation processes, and a new type of carbon dioxide emission simulator that was also developed. Features Describes ventilation processes by replacing semi-empirical models with more accurate analytical models. Includes concepts based on deterministic models (cause-and-effect models). Focuses on analytical mathematical model of the ventilation process. Covers both the objects with semi-closed and closed circulation of breathing gas, for hyperbaric and normobaric conditions. Summarizes relevant research results and their validation in real conditions and implemented into operational practice. This book is aimed at researchers, professionals, and graduate students in hyperbaric facility processing, building ventilation processing, life support system design, shipbuilding, marine engineering, and diving submarine safety.
Paradigms of Concurrency: Observations, Behaviours, and Systems - a Petri Net View - Ryszard Janicki (McMaster University, CA) Jetty Kleijn (Leiden University, NL) Maciej Koutny (Newcastle University, UK) Lukasz Mikulski (Nicolaus Copernicus University, PL) Concurrency can be studied at different yet consistent levels of abstraction: from individual behavioural observations via more abstract concurrent histories that can be represented by causality structures capturing invariant dependencies between executed actions, to system level constructs such as Petri nets or process algebra expressions. Histories can then be understood as sets of closely related observations. Depending on the nature of the observed relationships between executed actions involved in a single concurrent history, one may identify different concurrency paradigms underpinned by different kinds of causality structures such as partial orders. This book studies fundamental mathematical abstractions to capture and relate observations, histories, and systems. In particular, taking a Petri net view, we present system models fitting various concurrency paradigms and their associated causality structures.
The general aim of this book is to provide an elementary exposition of some basic concepts in terms of which both classical and non-dassicallogirs may be studied and appraised. Although quantificational logic is dealt with briefly in the last chapter, the discussion is chiefly concemed with propo gjtional cakuli. Still, the subject, as it stands today, cannot br covered in one book of reasonable length. Rather than to try to include in the volume as much as possible, I have put emphasis on some selected topics. Even these could not be roverrd completely, but for each topic I have attempted to present a detailed and precise t'Xposition of several basic results including some which are non-trivial. The roots of some of the central ideas in the volume go back to J. Luka siewicz's seminar on mathematicallogi.
This book provides a methodology for developing an optimum investment strategy in the heating and combined heat and power (CHP) industry. It demonstrates how to apply mathematical models to the analysis of heat and electricity source operation from technical and economic perspectives. It also allows readers to ascertain the economic effectiveness of modernizing an existing CHP plant. The mathematical models presented are designed to recognize identity profits in continuous time so that they can be better predicted. The authors examine the operational costs of a CHP plant and the impact of factors, such as environmental costs, associated with investment in the heating and CHP sector to enable readers to select the most appropriate technologies. It presents a state-of-the-art technical and economic analysis to enhance readers’ understanding of investment in and optimization of heating and CHP, and provides practical guidance for investors’ decision-making. The book is a valuable source of information, making it ideal for financial analysts and power engineers. Thanks to its in-depth analysis of mathematical methods, it is also suitable for students and researchers with an interest in investment strategy.
This book presents an innovative methodology for identifying optimum investment strategies in the power industry. To do so, it examines results including, among others, the impact of oxy-fuel technology on CO2 emissions prices, and the specific cost of electricity production. The technical and economic analysis presented here extend the available knowledge in the field of investment optimization in energy engineering, while also enabling investors to make decisions involving its application. Individual chapters explore the potential impacts of different factors like environmental charges on costs connected with investments in the power sector, as well as discussing the available technologies for heat and power generation. The book offers a valuable resource for researchers, market analysts, decision makers, power engineers and students alike.
This book covers the main ideas, methods, recent developments and applications of quantum-limit optical spectroscopy to quantum information, resolution spectroscopy, measurements beyond quantum limits, measurement of decoherence and entanglement. Quantum-limit spectroscopy lies at the frontier of current experimental and theoretical techniques, and is one of the areas of atomic spectroscopy where the quantization of the field is essential to predict and interpret the existing experimental results. Currently, there is an increasing interest in quantum and precision spectroscopy both theoretically and experimentally, due to a significant progress in trapping and cooling of single atoms and ions. This progress allows to explore in the most intimate detail the ways in which light interacts with atoms and to measure spectral properties and quantum effects with a large precision. Moreover, it allows to perform subtle tests of quantum mechanics on the single atom and single photon scale which were hardly even imaginable as ``thought experiments'' a few years ago.
The papers included in this volume deal with the following topics: convex analysis, operator theory, interpolation theory, theory of real functions, theory of analytic functions, bifurcation theory, Fourier analysis, functional analysis, measure theory, geometry of Banach spaces, history of mathematics.
This book presents the concepts and tools of ice mechanics, together with examples of their application in the fields of glaciology, climate research and civil engineering in cold regions. It starts with an account of the most important physical properties of sea and polar ice treated as an anisotropic polycrystalline material, and reviews relevant field observations and experimental measurements. The book focuses on theoretical descriptions of the material behaviour of ice in different stress, deformation and deformation-rate regimes on spatial scales ranging from single ice crystals, those typical in civil engineering applications, up to scales of thousands of kilometres, characteristic of large, grounded polar ice caps in Antarctica and Greenland. In addition, it offers a range of numerical formulations based on either discrete (finite-element, finite-difference and smoothed particle hydrodynamics) methods or asymptotic expansion methods, which have been used by geophysicists, theoretical glaciologists and civil engineers to simulate the behaviour of ice in a number of problems of importance to glaciology and civil engineering, and discusses the results of these simulations. The book is intended for scientists, engineers and graduate students interested in mathematical and numerical modelling of a wide variety of geophysical and civil engineering problems involving natural ice.
New Edition: Ocean Surface Waves: Their Physics and Prediction (3rd Edition)The book is an extended and updated edition of the book published in 1996 under the same title (World Scientific, ISBN 9810216866). It contains a very comprehensive and extensive study on surface ocean waves induced by wind, earthquakes and possible landslides and asteroids impacts. The basic mathematical principles, physical description of the observed phenomena, practical forecasting techniques of the various wave parameters and extended application in ocean and coastal engineering, are discussed from the stochastic point of view.All chapters were completely rewritten and supplemented with many new discoveries which were published since the first edition in 1996. In particular, new chapters are added on very interesting and contemporary topics such as: wave breaking mechanisms in deep- and shallow water, freak waves, tsunami, water circulation in porous sea bottom induced by surface waves, and waves propagation through mangrove forests.In terms of numerical modeling, the state of the art of the modern methodology of wave prediction models WAM and SWAN, as well as of the high sophisticated satellite methods of waves measurement and modern methods of signal processing, including wavelets approach and Hilbert Transform approach are presented. The book is supplemented with an extended list of relevant and extended, contemporary bibliography, subject index and author index.
This book presents a thermodynamic and economic analysis of gas-gas systems in power plants, including combined heat and power systems, combined cooling, heat and power systems, hydrogen production facilities and compressed energy storage system. A configuration for high-temperature gas-cooled nuclear reactor is also used as a heat source for the cycle. The book compares different technologies, such as gas-steam and gas-gas systems, using optimized cases. It presents mathematical models that return optimal thermodynamic parameters of the cycles, and applies a novel continuous-time model in order to perform an economic analysis as well. This book utilizes numerous illustrations and worked examples to thoroughly explain the technologies discussed, making it relevant for researchers, market analysts, decision makers, power engineers and students alike.
This work by two accomplished Polish researchers provides medical technicians and researchers alike with detailed descriptions of up-to-date methods used for computer processing and interpretation of medical images. The broad scope of the book takes in images acquisition, storing with compression, processing, analysis, recognition and also its automatic understanding. The introduction provides a general overview of the computer vision methods designed for medical images.
Mosses are a major component of the vegetation in ice-free coastal regions of Antarctica. They play an important role in the colonisation of ice-free terrain, accumulation of organic matter, release of organic exudates, and also provide a food and habitat resource for invertebrates. They serve as model organisms for physiological experiments designed to elucidate problems of plant cold tolerance and survival mechanisms and for monitoring biological responses to climate change. This Flora provides the first comprehensive description, with keys, of all known species and varieties of moss in the Antarctic biome. It has involved microscopic examination of around 10,000 specimens from Antarctica and, for comparison, from other continents. All species are illustrated by detailed line drawings, alongside information about their reproductive status, ecology, and distribution. This is an invaluable resource for bryologists worldwide, as well as to Antarctic botanists and other terrestrial biologists.
This book is an extended and substantially updated edition of the previous book editions published in 1996 and 2013 under the same title. The 3rd edition is a one-volume, modern and comprehensive overview of the current knowledge of regular and random ocean surface waves in deep waters and in coastal zones.Since the previous editions many new theoretical advances have been made in the physical understanding and analytical and numerical treatment of various ocean wave problems. The revisions and supplements demanded by these advances have been substantial, therefore the scope of the book has been extended by adding a new chapter and substantially supplementing others.All chapters of the book have been rewritten to include and describe in detail many new discoveries made since the completion of the previous editions. In this 3rd edition a comprehensive and updated overview of the fundamentals of the regular wave mechanics, as well as the spectral and statistical properties of random waves are given. Except for the updated chapters dedicated to tsunami and extreme waves, a new chapter dealing with other types of impulsive waves starting from rest, are also included.The air-sea interaction processes as well as the last improvements in ocean wave modelling and presently available wave prediction models (WAM, WAVEWATCH III, UMWM, NEMO) are thoroughly discussed and their applications are demonstrated. The review of the present ocean observation methods encompasses the modern sea-truthing, as well as applications of data from presently operating marine satellites.In this revised edition, chapters on the behavior of surface waves in the vegetated environments such as coral reef, mangrove forest, seaweed and seagrass areas are substantially extended and updated to include the last discoveries.The explanations in the book are self-contained and detailed enough to capture the interest of the potential readers and to prompt them to explore the research literature. The list of rapidly growing number of the recent papers on the ocean waves has been extended substantially, up to about 900 titles.
The book provides a derivation of the models used for calculating the risk and hazard of central oxygen toxicity pertaining to diving-based studies consistent with the research conducted earlier by the Royal Navy and the US Navy. This book forms the basis for extending the possibility of undertaking nitrox dives in combination with oxygen dives, thus significantly increasing tactical capabilities of conducting diving special operations. Features: provides derivation of the models used for calculating the risk and hazard of central oxygen toxicity improves oxygen diving procedures described in the US Navy Diving Manual includes procedures applicable to undertaking nitrox dives in combination with oxygen dives pitches the material at highest technology readiness levels, i.e. 9 TRL aims to increase tactical capabilities of conducting diving special operations This book is aimed at researchers, professionals and graduate students in life support system design, diving submarine safety, ventilation, health, sanitary engineering, mining engineering and working environment in chambers or closed compartments.
Machine Learning: An Artificial Intelligence Approach contains tutorial overviews and research papers representative of trends in the area of machine learning as viewed from an artificial intelligence perspective. The book is organized into six parts. Part I provides an overview of machine learning and explains why machines should learn. Part II covers important issues affecting the design of learning programs—particularly programs that learn from examples. It also describes inductive learning systems. Part III deals with learning by analogy, by experimentation, and from experience. Parts IV and V discuss learning from observation and discovery, and learning from instruction, respectively. Part VI presents two studies on applied learning systems—one on the recovery of valuable information via inductive inference; the other on inducing models of simple algebraic skills from observed student performance in the context of the Leeds Modeling System (LMS). This book is intended for researchers in artificial intelligence, computer science, and cognitive psychology; students in artificial intelligence and related disciplines; and a diverse range of readers, including computer scientists, robotics experts, knowledge engineers, educators, philosophers, data analysts, psychologists, and electronic engineers.
A detailed description of a new approach to perceptual analysis and processing of medical images is given. Instead of traditional pattern recognition a new method of image analysis is presented, based on a syntactic description of the shapes selected on the image and graph-grammar parsing algorithms. This method of "Image Understanding" can be found as a model of mans' cognitive image understanding processes. The usefulness for the automatic understanding of the merit of medical images is demonstrated as well as the ability for giving useful diagnostic descriptions of the illnesses. As an application, the production of a content-based, automatically generated index for arranging and for searching medical images in multimedia medical databases is presented.
In presented book the Intelligent Open Learning Systems (IOLS) are proposed, described, discussed, and evaluated. The IOLS is a system in which traditional methods of online teaching are enhanced through the use of artificial intelligence and cognitive science. This is the main topic of the book. It consists of ten chapters and is divided into three parts. The first part concentrates on the Open Learning System (OLS) analysis, in particular: the social and educational meanings of the OLS, the new role of the teacher and the new requirements regarding the structure of didactic material. Moreover, the cybernetic model of student, teacher and computer collaboration is presented, the teaching-learning process content and its main characteristics are discussed, and the system based approach to the OLS design is proposed. The second part is focused on the problem of knowledge modeling in the OLS based on the ontology and the competence approaches and leading to the learning object concept and competence management in open systems. The third part describes applications of the OLS in the virtual laboratory for competence transfer, the community-built system of distance learning network, and the AGH student city – the real-life application of the OLS concept. The authors’ research findings presented in the book should be useful in various applications related to knowledge management, e-learning systems and information systems.
Speciation analysis is a field of trace element analytical chemistry that deals with detection, identification and determination of individual chemical forms of metals and metalloids. There has been increased awareness of the importance of elemental speciation over the last 20 years and this has lead to growing demand for analytical techniques capable of providing species-specific information. Hyphenated Techniques in Speciation Analysis offers a brief but comprehensive overview of hyphenated techniques and their various applications for the determination of chemical forms of trace elements. It brings a succinct presentation of the concept of speciation analysis, gives an overview of techniques based on coupling of chromatography with element and molecule specific detection and summarises their applications in the fields of environmental and industrial chemistry, biochemistry, nutrition, toxicology and medicine. Fully referenced, Hyphenated Techniques in Speciation Analysis is an invaluable introduction to elemental speciation analysis and also provides a practising analyst with a critical overview of research carried out in the field.
Concurrent systems abound in human experience but their fully adequate conceptualization as yet eludes our most able thinkers. The COSY (ConcurrentSystem) notation and theory was developed in the last decade as one of a number of mathematical approaches for conceptualizing and analyzing concurrent and reactive systems. The COSY approach extends theconventional notions of grammar and automaton from formal language and automata theory to collections of "synchronized" grammars and automata, permitting system specification and analysis of "true" concurrency without reduction to non-determinism. COSY theory is developed to a great level of detail and constitutes the first uniform and self-contained presentationof all results about COSY published in the past, as well as including many new results. COSY theory is used to analyze a sufficient number of typical problems involving concurrency, synchronization and scheduling, to allow the reader to apply the techniques presented tosimilar problems. The COSY model is also related to many alternative models of concurrency, particularly Petri Nets, Communicating Sequential Processes and the Calculus of Communicating Systems.
The noncommutative versions of fundamental classical results on the almost sure convergence in L2-spaces are discussed: individual ergodic theorems, strong laws of large numbers, theorems on convergence of orthogonal series, of martingales of powers of contractions etc. The proofs introduce new techniques in von Neumann algebras. The reader is assumed to master the fundamentals of functional analysis and probability. The book is written mainly for mathematicians and physicists familiar with probability theory and interested in applications of operator algebras to quantum statistical mechanics.
This book explores the development and activity of the Methodist Church in Poland, focusing on the political conditions under which it functioned after 1945. In particular it considers the role of party and state power, and the nature and impact of religious policy towards the Church. The chapters touch on organizational issues, missionary activity, and key figures in the recent history of the Church. Drawing on more than 20 years of research on Polish Methodism and the increasing availability of archival material, this volume will be of interest to scholars of religion, politics and history.
11 original. Modifications which I introduced are radical and often far going. In my opinion the Polish text had two main drawbacks. It was overloaded with informal considerations and at the same time formal concepts included in some parts of the book were presented in a too complicated way. Of course one of the motives to revise it was also the fact that much time has passed since I finished writing the Polish version and obviously certain decisions and ideas contained in the first edition seem not quite relevant now. So it is not only the desire to make the exposition clearer but also the reasons of substantial nature which motivated writing a revised version. I do not think it desirable to bother the reader with a detailed discussion of all changes to which the Polish version was subjected and that is why I will confine myself to pointing out only the most significant ones. Explanations concerning logical and set-theoretical notions applied in the book have been shortened as much as possible, in the Polish version one whole chapter was devoted to the discussion of them.
On average, 60% of the world's people and cargo is transported by vehicle that move on rubber tires over roadways of various construction, composition, and quality. The number of such vehicles, including automobiles and all manner of trucks, increases continually with a growing positive impact on accessibility and a growing negative impact on interactions among humans and their relationship to the surrounding environment. This multiplicity of vehicles, through their physical impact and their emissions, is responsible for, among other negative results: waste of energy, pollution through emission of harmful compounds, degradation of road surfaces, crowding of roads leading to waste of time and increase of social stress, and decrease in safety and comfort. In particular, the safety of vehicular traffic depends on a man-vehicle-road system that includes both active and passive security controls. In spite of the drawbacks mentioned above, the governments of almost every country in the world not only expect but facilitate improvements in vehicular transport performance in order to increase such parameters as load capacity and driving velocity, while decreasing such parameters as costs to passengers, energy resources investments, fuel consumption, etc. Some of the problems have clear, if not always easily attainable, solutions.
With its comprehensive review of the current knowledge and the future requirements in the field, this book presents all the features of bulk high temperature superconducting materials. Starting from physical and chemical fundamentals, the authors move on to portray methods and problems of materials processing, thoroughly working out the characteristic properties of bulk superconductors in contrast to long conductors and films. They provide a wide range of specific materials characteristics with respect to the latest developments and future applications guiding from fundamentals to practical engineering examples. The authors are all leading international specialists involved in the field of high TC superconductor bulk materials since the beginning. Of utmost interest to engineers, scientists, and PhD students working in this field.
This book introduces the reader to the concept of functional synchronization and how it operates on very different levels in psychological and social systems – from the emergence of thought to the formation of social relations and the structure of societies. For years, psychologists have investigated phenomena such as self-concept, social judgment, social relations, group dynamics, and cooperation and conflict, but have discussed these phenomena seoarately.This book shows how synchronization provides a foundational approach to these otherwise distinct and diverse psychological processes.This work shows that there is a basic tendency with many processes to become coordinated and progressively integrated into increasingly larger units through well-defined processes. For these larger units, new and largely adaptive functions emerge. Although synchronization affords progressive integration of system elements to enable correspondingly higher-order functions, the trajectory of synchronization is often characterized by periods of assembly and disassembly of system elements. This occurs when a task is completed and synchronization is no longer essential so that the elements once again operate in an independent fashion. It is argued that the disassembly-resynchronization scenario occurs at all levels of psychological and social reality. The implications of this approach for important issues in interpersonal relations and societal processes are discussed.
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