This book is a guide for the world of Pervasive Computing. It describes a new class of computing devices which are becoming omnipresent in every day life. They make information access and processing easily available for everyone from anywhere at any time. Mobility, wireless connectivity, di- versity, and ease-of-use are the magic keywords of Pervasive Computing. The book covers these front-end devices as well as their operating systems and the back-end infrastructure which integrate these pervasive components into a seamless IT world. A strong emphasis is placed on the underlying technologies and standards applied when building up pervasive solutions. These fundamental topics include commonly used terms such as XML, WAP, UMTS, GPRS, Bluetooth, Jini, transcoding, and cryptography, to mention just a few. Besides a comprehensive state-of-the-art description of the Pervasive Computing technology itself, this book gives an overview of today's real-life applications and accompanying service offerings. M-Commerce, e-Business, networked home, travel, and finance are exciting examples of applied Pervasive Computing.
Software Development is moving towards a more agile and more flexible approach. It turns out that the traditional "waterfall" model is not supportive in an environment where technical, financial and strategic constraints are changing almost every day. But what is agility? What are today’s major approaches? And especially: What is the impact of agile development principles on the development teams, on project management and on software architects? How can large enterprises become more agile and improve their business processes, which have been existing since many, many years? What are the limitations of Agility? And what is the right balance between reliable structures and flexibility? This book will give answers to these questions. A strong emphasis will be on real life project examples, which describe how development teams have moved from a waterfall model towards an Agile Software Development approach.
Aside from water the materials which are used by mankind in highest quantities arecementitious materials and concrete. This book shows how the quality of the technical product depends on mineral phases and their reactions during the hydration and strengthening process. Additives and admixtures infl uence the course of hydration and the properties. Options of reducing the CO2-production in cementitious materials are presented and numerous examples of unhydrous and hydrous phases and their formation conditions are discussed. This editorial work consists of four parts including cement composition and hydration, Special cement and binder mineral phases, Cementitious and binder materials, and Measurement and properties. Every part contains different contributions and covers a broad range within the area. Contents Part I: Cement composition and hydration Diffraction and crystallography applied to anhydrous cements Diffraction and crystallography applied to hydrating cements Synthesis of highly reactive pure cement phases Thermodynamic modelling of cement hydration: Portland cements – blended cements – calcium sulfoaluminate cements Part II: Special cement and binder mineral phases Role of hydrotalcite-type layered double hydroxides in delayed pozzolanic reactions and their bearing on mortar dating Setting control of CAC by substituted acetic acids and crystal structures of their calcium salts Crystallography and crystal chemistry of AFm phases related to cement chemistry Part III: Cementitious and binder materials Chemistry, design and application of hybrid alkali activated binders Binding materials based on calcium sulphates Magnesia building material (Sorel cement) – from basics to application New CO2-reduced cementitious systems Composition and properties of ternary binders Part IV: Measurement and properties Characterization of microstructural properties of Portland cements by analytical scanning electron microscopy Correlating XRD data with technological properties No cement production without refractories
This work gives a comprehensive overview on materials, processes and technological challenges for electrochemical storage and conversion of energy. Optimization and development of electrochemical cells requires consideration of the cell as a whole, taking into account the complex interplay of all individual components. Considering the availability of resources, their environmental impact and requirements for recycling, the design of new concepts has to be based on the understanding of relevant processes at an atomic level.
A gathering of brilliant and viciously funny recollections from one of the twentieth century’s most famous literary enfants terribles. Written in 1980 but published here for the first time, these texts tell the story of the various farces that developed around the literary prizes Thomas Bernhard received in his lifetime. Whether it was the Bremen Literature Prize, the Grillparzer Prize, or the Austrian State Prize, his participation in the acceptance ceremony—always less than gracious, it must be said—resulted in scandal (only at the awarding of the prize from Austria’s Federal Chamber of Commerce did Bernhard feel at home: he received that one, he said, in recognition of the great example he set for shopkeeping apprentices). And the remuneration connected with the prizes presented him with opportunities for adventure—of the new-house and luxury-car variety. Here is a portrait of the writer as a prizewinner: laconic, sardonic, and shaking his head with biting amusement at the world and at himself. A revelatory work of dazzling comedy, the pinnacle of Bernhardian art.
Thomas Bernhard is "one of the masters of contemporary European fiction" (George Steiner); "one of the century's most gifted writers" (New York Newsday); "a virtuoso of rancor and rage" (Bookforum). And although he is favorably compared with Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, and Robert Musil, Thomas Bernhard still remains relatively unknown in America. Uninitiated readers should consider Three Novellas a passport to the absurd, dark, and uncommonly comic world of Bernhard. Two of the three novellas here have never before been published in English, and all of them show an early preoccupation with the themes-illness and madness, isolation, tragic friendships-that would obsess Bernhard throughout his career. Amras, one of his earliest works, tells the story of two brothers, one epileptic, who have survived a family suicide pact and are now living in a ruined tower, struggling with madness, trying either to come fully back to life or finally to die. In Playing Watten, the narrator, a doctor who lost his practice due to morphine abuse, describes a visit paid him by a truck driver who wanted the doctor to return to his habit of playing a game of cards (watten) every Wednesday—a habit that the doctor had interrupted when one of the players killed himself. The last novella, Walking, records the conversations of the narrator and his friend Oehler while they walk, discussing anything that comes to mind but always circling back to their mutual friend Karrer, who has gone irrevocably mad. Perhaps the most overtly philosophical work in Bernhard's highly philosophical oeuvre, Walking provides a penetrating meditation on the impossibility of truly thinking. Three Novellas offers a superb introduction to the fiction of perhaps the greatest unsung hero of twentieth-century literature. Rarely have the words suffocating, intense, and obsessive been meant so positively.
LRB BOOKSHOP'S AUTHOR OF THE MONTH ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019 WITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY ANNE ENRIGHT, AUTHOR OF THE ACTRESS 'If you haven't read Bernhard, you will not know of the most radical advance in fiction since Joyce ... My advice: dive in.' Lucy Ellmann 'I absolutely love Bernhard: he is one of the darkest and funniest writers ... A must read for everybody.' Karl Ove Knausgaard An unnamed writer arrives at an 'artistic dinner' hosted by a composer and his society wife: a couple he once admired, but has now come to detest. They have been brought together by their friend Joana's suicide, but the guest of honour, a famous actor from the Burgtheatre, is late. As the guests await his arrival, little do they know that they are being subjected to the narrator's merciless scrutiny from his wing-backed throne, the targets of a tirade of epic, frenzied proportions. When the star actor finally arrives, he ushers in an explosive end to the evening that is impossible to see coming. Originally banned in Thomas Bernhard's homeland, Woodcutters brutally exposes the hollow pretentiousness of the Austrian bourgeoisie in an unforgettable firework display of humour and horror - newly illuminated by Anne Enright's afterword.
Thomas Bernhard is one of the greatest twentieth-century writers in the German language. Extinction, his last novel, takes the form of the autobiographical testimony of Franz-Josef Murau. The intellectual black sheep of a powerful Austrian land-owning family, Murau lives in Rome in self-exile. Obsessed and angry with his identity as an Austrian, he resolves never to return to the family estate of Wolfsegg. But when news comes of his parents' deaths, he finds himself master of Wolfsegg and must decide its fate. Written in Bernhard's seamless style, Extinction is the ultimate proof of his extraordinary literary genius. "Strangely gripping. The glue that holds his remarkable novel together is the unique virtuosity of his imaginative prose, a highly original kind of writing that resembles musical patterns of theme, variations and recapitulation."—Steve Dowden, Washington Times "With a breathtaking sustained intensity . . . Bernhard assaults through the voice of Murau the modern world as exemplified by his birthplace, Austria."—Thomas McGonigle, Chicago Tribune Books "Perfectly balanced and continually interesting. . . . The particular fineness of Extinction lies in its depiction of a consciousness in action."—Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World "Bernhard's distinctive style . . . is caught with quite remarkable fidelity in David McLintock's excellent translation . . . . The work of a master."—W.E. Yates, New York Times Book Review "When Thomas Bernhard died, Austria lost one of its bravest authors . . . . David McLintock's translation . . . is exquisite. It presents an English far richer than most English language books . . . . Fresh, disturbed and punchy."—Benjamin Weissman, Los Angeles Times
While many books discuss how nations can prevent the proliferation of biological and nuclear weapons, this unique and controversial volume begins with the premise that these weapons will certainly multiply despite our desperate desire to slow this process. How worried should we be and what should we do? Thomas Preston examines current trends in the proliferation of nuclear and biological weapons capabilities, know-how, and technologies for both state and nonstate actors and then projects these trends over the coming ten to fifteen years to assess how they might impact existing security relationships between states. Providing thorough discussion and analysis of a potentially nuclear North Korea and Iran, the current biotechnical revolution, and the future threat of attacks against the United States by terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda, Preston offers answers and some potentially surprising reassurances in this accessibly written and informative book. Book jacket.
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