For Tom Springer, the usual four seasons can't begin to describe the mini-solstices of a Midwestern year: "Does summer really begin on June 21? No, the first ripe Michigan strawberries say summer to me ... just as a sumac that flames crimson in an August fencerow sends up the first semaphore flag of autumn. While these milestones aren't measured by celestial reckoning, learning to know and observe them can greatly enrich a life." The Star in the Sycamore takes readers on a journey of rare insight and local discovery. In the ecstasy of a dusk feeding frenzy, Springer catches a slew of fat bass and toothsome pike in "a little river gone wild in the city." In his love for country dogs, un-pampered on their beds of barn straw, he sees an ancient link to musky, wild pleasures that "fur babies" will never know. In his quest to learn dozens of star constellations, he reveals a striking connection between stars, trees and souls. Along the way, he meets people forever changed and healed by wildness. A combat soldier on a flight home, whose agitated demeanor grows calm and joyful as he describes an upcoming leave in the north woods. A burned-out nonprofit executive who becomes a native plant herbalist to cure herself and then the bodies and psyches of others. Through it all, Springer weaves humor, grace and a luminous sense of the ordinary.
Harry Jobber has run smack into reality and he was ill prepared for the meeting. Harry has drifted in his comfort zone and been content there much too long. He has become more of a kid than his own two children. He has become a fanatic on religious devotion and wants something going on at his church for the children of the community. He can hardly wait until his oldest child graduates from college so he, Henry, can come home to run the family business. Harry envisions his life growing much easier whereby he can help the kids fly their kites, the very young sail their little boats on his pond and fill the church with the young teenagers. He has very little ambition for himself. But Harry has an ungrateful wife that wants to move up in society. She is a fanatic about attending various clubs in the community where she can rub shoulders with the elite. She expresses dissatisfaction with their comfortable old home and wants to go to the suburbs. Harry dreads hearing of such a thing and certainly attempts to discourage any move. He cannot win an argument with his dominating wife. When the hard times come and they certainly do, Harry seems better equipped to face the future than his wife who has escaped poverty one time and wants nothing further to do with returning. Gertrude, the wife, is not happy with her lot and strains to make Harry into the man she thinks she wants. She wants affluence that she can touch. Harry just wants to live and let live in a world of his own. But the very hard time come. There is some beautiful poetry sprinkled throughout the novel.
This book emphasises the important role that protozoa play in many natural ecosystems. To shed new light on their individual adaptive skills, the respective chapters examine the ecology and functional biology of this diverse group of eukaryotic microbes. Protozoa are well-established model organisms that exemplify many general problems in population ecology and community ecology, as well as evolutionary biology. Their particular characteristics, like large population sizes, life cycles and motile sensory behaviour, have a profound impact on their survival, distribution, and interaction with other species. Thus, readers will also be introduced to protozoan habitats in a broad range of environments. Even though this group of unicellular organisms is highly diverse, the authors focus on shared ecological patterns. Students and scientists working in the areas of eukaryotic microbiology and ecology will appreciate this updated and revised 2nd Edition as a valuable reference guide to the “lifestyles” of protozoa.
This text ventures into areas which the majority of control system books avoid. It was written to look at the area in a much wider form than the usual process control or machine control-systems. Many topics which are covered in other specialities are covered such as the stability of amplifiers, phase-locked loops, structural resonance and parasitic oscillations. It also covers the application and implementation of real-time digital controllers and for the first time the Amplitude-locked loop. An even wider look at the area is shown by examining classical or historic mathematical algorithms in terms of control-theory. Despite its wide range, the book is tutorial in nature and tries to avoid where possible an obtuse mathematical approach. It comes with MATLAB, LabView and a few Mathematica examples. The book is an ideal undergraduate text for engineers and a refresher for many practising engineers. It gives a thorough background in the analogue domain before moving on to digital-control and its applications. The proceeds from author royalties of this book will be donated to charity.
This book seeks to investigate ‘platform power’ in the multi-platform era and unravels the evolution of power structures in the TV industry as a result of platformisation. Multiple TV platforms and modes of distribution are competing–not necessarily in a zero-sum game–to control the market. In the volume, the contributors work to extend established ‘platform theory’ to the TV industry, which has become increasingly organised as a platform economy. The book helps to understand how platform power arises in the industry, how it destabilises international relations, and how it is used in the global media value chain. Platform Power and Policy in Transforming Television Markets contributes to the growing field of media industry studies, and draws on scholarly work in communication, political economy and public policy whilst providing a deeper insight into the transformation of the TV industry from an economic, political and consumer level. Avoiding a merely legal analysis from a technology-driven perspective, the book provides a critical analysis of the dominant modes of power within the evolving structures of the global TV value chain.
Luna 2, launched by the USSR in 1959, was the first spacecraft from Earth to land on the moon. That first voyage was followed by increasingly capable lunar exploration spacecraft from Russia and the United States. A total of 36 successful lunar exploration missions were conducted from 1959 to the last Apollo manned exploration in 1972 and the final travels of the Lunokhod lunar rover in 1973. Of all the missions, that of Apollo 17 was the pinnacle of manned space exploration. Apollo 17 astronauts traveled 21 miles on the lunar surface in a dune buggy-type vehicle, stopping frequently to explore and gather samples. The spacecraft that enabled lunar exploration were ingenious, and reflected the best efforts of talented people working with the technology of the day. This book showcases the engineering involved in those incredible machines. The spacecraft covered, and their missions, are listed below. From the United States: • Ranger – Photography en route to lunar impact • Lunar Orbiter – Photography of front and back side of moon • Surveyor – Soft landing, photography, and soil analysis • Apollo – Manned exploration. Lunar Rover expanded range From the USSR: • Luna 2 – Photography en route to lunar impact • Luna 3 – Photography of back side of moon on flyby • Luna 9 and 13 – Soft landing, photography, and soil analysis • Luna 10, 11, 12, 14 – Photography from lunar orbit • Luna 16, 20, 24 – Soft landing, return of soil sample to Earth • Lunokhod-1, -2 – Lunar roving vehicle driven from Earth • L1 – Planned manned lunar flyby but only flew unmanned • L3 – Planned manned lunar landing but never flew to moon To tell the story of these spacecraft, Tom Lund draws on over 40 years’ work on aircraft and spacecraft systems. He was technical lead for the landing radars for the Surveyor and Apollo spacecraft, and his practical experience is augmented by master’s degrees in electrical engineering, physics, and business administration.
This book is intended to be a little different from other books in its coverage. There are a great many digital signal processing (DSP) books and signals and systems books on the market. Since most undergraduate courses begin with signals and systems and then move on in later years to DSP, I felt a need to combine the two into one book that was concise yet not too overburdening. This means that students need only purchase one book instead of two and at the same time see the flow of knowledge from one subject into the next. Like the rudiments of music, it starts at the very beginning with some elementary knowledge and builds on it chapter by chapter to advanced work by chapter 15. I have been teaching now for 38 years and always think it necessary to credit the pioneers of the subjects we teach and ask the question “How did we get to this present stage in technological achievement”? Therefore, in Chapter 1 I have given a concise history trying to not sway too much away from the subject area. This is followed by the rudimentary theory in increasing complexity. It has already been taught successfully to a class at Auckland University of Technology New Zealand.
Galileo Galilei said he was “reading the book of nature” as he observed pendulums swinging, but he might also simply have tried to draw the numbers themselves as they fall into networks of permutations or form loops that synchronize at different speeds, or attach themselves to balls passing in and out of the hands of good jugglers. Numbers are, after all, a part of nature. As such, looking at and thinking about them is a way of understanding our relationship to nature. But when we do so in a technical, professional way, we tend to overlook their basic attributes, the things we can understand by simply “looking at numbers.” Tom Johnson is a composer who uses logic and mathematical models, such as combinatorics of numbers, in his music. The patterns he finds while “looking at numbers” can also be explored in drawings. This book focuses on such drawings, their beauty and their mathematical meaning. The accompanying comments were written in collaboration with the mathematician Franck Jedrzejewski.
A ground-breaking new volume and the first of its kind to concisely outline and explicate the emerging field of whole person care process, Whole Person Care: A New Paradigm for the 21st Century organizes the disparate strains of literature on the topic. It does so by clarifying the concept of 'whole person' and also by outlining the challenges and opportunities that death anxiety poses to the practice of whole person care. Whole person care seeks to study, understand and promote the role of health care in relieving suffering and promoting healing in acute and chronic illness as a complement to the disease focus of biomedicine. The focus is on the whole person -- physical, emotional, social, and spiritual. Using concise, easy-to-read language, the early chapters offer practitioners a thorough understanding of the concepts, skills and tools necessary for the practice of whole person care from a clinician-patient interaction standpoint, while the last two chapters review the myriad implications of whole person care for medical practice. An invaluable resource for all areas of medical practice and for practitioners at all stages of development, from medical students to physicians and allied health providers with many years of experience, Whole Person Care: A New Paradigm for the 21st Century will have a profound impact on western medical practice in North America and elsewhere.
The textbook introduces the self-understanding, institutional structure and practice of the political system of the Federal Republic of Germany. The work provides a problem-oriented overview of the basic constitutional and foreign policy decisions that have constituted German democracy; the political field of forces formed by interest groups, citizens' initiatives, parties and mass media; the political institutions at the federal, state and local levels; the social reach and administrative enforcement of political decisions; the political culture including the structure of the political ruling class. The new edition also addresses, among other things, the consequences of the Corona crisis for the political system, the changing party system and the crisis of the EU after the 2021 federal election.
Preamble The emergence of machine intelligence during the second half of the twentieth century is the most important development in the evolution of this planet since the origin of life two to three thousand million years ago. The emergence of machine intelligence within the matrix of human society is analogous to the emergence, three billion years ago, of complex, self-replicating molecules within the matrix of an energy-rich molecular soup - the first step in the evolution of life. The emergence of machine intelligence within a human social context has set into motion irreversible processes which will lead to an evolutionary discontinuity. Just as the emergence of "Life" represented a qualitatively different form of organisation of matter and energy, so will pure "Intelligence" represent a qualitatively different form of organisation of matter, energy and life. The emergence of machine intelligence presages the progression of the human species as we know it, into a form which, at present, we would not recognise as "human". As Forsyth and Naylor (1985) have pointed out: "Humanity has opened two Pandora's boxes at the same time, one labelled genetic engineering, the other labelled knowledge engineering. What we have let out is not entirely clear, but it is reasonable to hazard a guess that it contains the seeds of our successors".
This book is a field guide that describes and explains the commonest minerals and rocks as well as introducing the most important fossil groups. In addition, a variety of geological structures are described and illustrated in the numerous diagrams and photographs. The guide is your perfect companion for hikes or walks in the countryside, inviting you to discover the geology hidden behind the landscapes surrounding us, as well as helping you to recognise the various minerals, rocks and fossils, you might encounter. Geology is a science that only really comes to life when we are outside, for example, on walks or hikes along the coast or through national parks. With a little knowledge you will be able to experience the landscape in a completely different way. The rocks will “come alive”, so to speak, and you will be able to read their history like a book - understanding the range and complexity of geological processes which have formed the Earth beneath our feet. Such processes - an interplay of magmatism, tectonics, metamorphosis and sedimentation, as well as climate and sea-level change - have shaped the Earth over millennia and continue to do so even at the present time. The book is aimed at nature lovers of all types, as well as students of geology – in fact, anyone who is interested in the world around us. It will provide the perfect companion for walks or hikes in the countryside. This book is a translation of the original German 1st edition Pocket Guide Geologie im Gelände by Tom McCann, published by Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature in 2019. The initial translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent detailed revision by the author ensures that the book reads stylistically like a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors.
This book focuses on the clarification of what actually a handbook is, the systematic identification of what ought to be considered as “settled knowledge” (extracted from historic repositories) for inclusion into such a handbook, and the “assembly” of such identified knowledge into a form which is fit for the purpose and conforms to the formal characteristics of handbooks as a “literary genre”. For many newly emerging domains or disciplines, for which no handbook with normative authority has yet been defined, the question arises of how to do this systematically and in a non-arbitrary manner. This book is the first to reflect upon the question of how to construct a desktop handbook. It is demonstrated how concept analysis can be used for identifying settled knowledge as the key ingredient by utilizing the assembled data for classification; a presentation scheme for handbook articles is developed and demonstrated to be suitable. The sketched approach is then illustrated by an example from the railway safety domain. Finally, the limitations of the presented methods are discussed. The key contribution of this book is the (example illustrated) construction method itself, not the handbook, which would result from a highly detailed and thoroughly comprehensive application of the method.
Not so if the book has been translated into Arabic. Now the reader can discern no meaning in the letters. The text conveys almost no information to the reader, yet the linguistic informa tion contained by the book is virtually the same as in the English original. The reader, familiar with books will still recognise two things, however: First, that the book is a book. Second, that the squiggles on the page represent a pattern of abstractions which probably makes sense to someone who understands the mean ing of those squiggles. Therefore, the book as such, will still have some meaning for the English reader, even if the content of the text has none. Let us go to a more extreme case. Not a book, but a stone, or a rock with engravings in an ancient language no longer under stood by anyone alive. Does such a stone not contain human information even if it is not decipherable? Suppose at some point in the future, basic knowledge about linguistics and clever computer aids allow us to decipher it? Or suppose someone discovers the equivalent of a Rosetta stone which allows us to translate it into a known language, and then into English? Can one really say that the stone contained no information prior to translation? It is possible to argue that the stone, prior to deciphering contained only latent information.
This book focuses on a central success factor for family businesses: maintaining the decision-making ability over generations while not jeopardizing the business due to family conflict, inefficient governance structures, or lack of identification. The authors identify that this is not as easy as the endeavor to bring two social systems together with contradicting logic (family and business) leads to many dangerous pitfalls. This book presents outcomes of a unique research project in which family managers of eleven of the oldest and largest German family businesses, at least the fourth generation, met for more than three years on a regular basis and presented the essence of their family governance structures to each other and to the authors. It was a joint “learning journey” that admits identifying twelve core questions that these families had been answering to keep up the relationship between family and business successfully over generations. Obviously, there is no “right” answer to these questions. The key to success is rather engaging the families in a process to find out their own answers and make them aware of the “two sides”: being a family is different from being a business family.
One of the currently most active research areas within Artificial Intelligence is the field of Machine Learning. which involves the study and development of computational models of learning processes. A major goal of research in this field is to build computers capable of improving their performance with practice and of acquiring knowledge on their own. The intent of this book is to provide a snapshot of this field through a broad. representative set of easily assimilated short papers. As such. this book is intended to complement the two volumes of Machine Learning: An Artificial Intelligence Approach (Morgan-Kaufman Publishers). which provide a smaller number of in-depth research papers. Each of the 77 papers in the present book summarizes a current research effort. and provides references to longer expositions appearing elsewhere. These papers cover a broad range of topics. including research on analogy. conceptual clustering. explanation-based generalization. incremental learning. inductive inference. learning apprentice systems. machine discovery. theoretical models of learning. and applications of machine learning methods. A subject index IS provided to assist in locating research related to specific topics. The majority of these papers were collected from the participants at the Third International Machine Learning Workshop. held June 24-26. 1985 at Skytop Lodge. Skytop. Pennsylvania. While the list of research projects covered is not exhaustive. we believe that it provides a representative sampling of the best ongoing work in the field. and a unique perspective on where the field is and where it is headed.
Information and Meaning is the third book in a trilogy exploring the nature of information, intelligence and meaning. It begins by providing an overview of the first two works of the trilogy, then goes on to consider the meaning of meaning. This explorat ion leads to a theory of how the brain works. This book differs from others in the field, in that it is written from the perspective of a theoretical biologist looking at the evolution of information systems as a basis for studying the phenomena of information, intelligence and meaning. It describes how neurons create a brain which understands information inputs and then is able to operate on such information.
A new edition of a classical treatment of elliptic and modular functions with some of their number-theoretic applications, this text offers an updated bibliography and an alternative treatment of the transformation formula for the Dedekind eta function. It covers many topics, such as Hecke’s theory of entire forms with multiplicative Fourier coefficients, and the last chapter recounts Bohr’s theory of equivalence of general Dirichlet series.
This book gives a detailed overview of the theory of electromagnetic wave scattering on single, homogeneous, but nonspherical particles. Beside the systematically developed Green’s function formalism of the first edition this second and enlarged edition contains additional material regarding group theoretical considerations for nonspherical particles with boundary symmetries, an iterative T-matrix scheme for approximate solutions, and two additional but basic applications. Moreover, to demonstrate the advantages of the group theoretical approach and the iterative solution technique, the restriction to axisymmetric scatterers of the first edition was abandoned.
Applied Acrobat for Engineers is the first and only book to be written specifically to give engineers the skills that they need to use pdfs and Adobe Acrobat in engineering applications. Teaches the use of PDF in communication and archiving of complex documents with a specific slant towards various engineering disciplines and the related areas of architecture and construction management Better document control reduces project review and approval times Uses the progressive treatment of a sample project, throughout the book, to explain and illustrate the application of Acrobat techniques Encourages easier interaction with clients and regulatory agencies by employing a completely searchable document format which is available to all
Foundation Adobe Edge Animate is a project-oriented book that will walk you through the features of Edge Animate - Adobe's exciting new motion and interaction tool for web standards development. Edge Animate is an application that allows web designers and developers to make full use of many of the features of CSS3, JavaScript, and HTML5. Edge Animate enables you to animate graphics without the need to hand code everything using canvas or SVG. It exports well-formed, standards-compliant code that you can either use to create new web products, or add directly into existing projects. It also features full JavaScript and DOM manipulation, enabling you to get under the hood and create fantastic interactive experiences. Using a unique project-oriented focus you will be creating carefully developed projects designed to give you the skills and confidence necessary to undertake interactive and web design experiences aimed at devices ranging from smart phones to the TV set in your living room. Along the way you will discover how many of the tools in the Adobe Web Design CS6 collection can be fully utilized to create expressive and engaging web applications. This includes: Building interactive projects using the Edge Animate timeline and coding tools. Learning how Fireworks, Photoshop, and Illustrator are used for Edge Animate content creation. Discovering how pages created in Dreamweaver and Muse can become fully interactive and contain motion graphics in Edge Animate.
This book covers the psychedelic ayahuasca tourism in Peru, with its facet-rich psychological, pharmacological, anthropological, and sociological aspects. The reader gets an interdisciplinary insight into the historical development and the current state of ayahuasca research. Findings from three empirical studies are presented, which the author has won in a 4-year field research: How do common standards develop in this particular form of psycho-spiritual tourism? Why are people from developed nations and urban centres heading to the Amazon to ingest the psychedelic beverage Ayahuasca? How do they experience such ceremonies and retreats? Which insights, personal meaning and effects do they gain and how do they integrate their experiences into the everyday life?
This introduction to the representation theory of compact Lie groups follows Herman Weyl’s original approach. It discusses all aspects of finite-dimensional Lie theory, consistently emphasizing the groups themselves. Thus, the presentation is more geometric and analytic than algebraic. It is a useful reference and a source of explicit computations. Each section contains a range of exercises, and 24 figures help illustrate geometric concepts.
This guide for aspiring entrepreneurs provides expert advice on every aspect of launching a new business. It is designed to be of particular value for academics wishing to exploit the commercial value of a new technology or business solution. Inspiring and readable, it shows how to evaluate the strength of a business idea, how to protect inventions, reviews legal steps and responsibilities, shows how to position products in the market, how to create a business plan and raise initial capital. Case studies, exercises and tips demystify the process of starting a business, build confidence and greatly increase the chances of success.
Honeycomb Technology is a guide to honeycomb cores and honeycomb sandwich panels, from the manufacturing methods by which they are produced, to the different types of design, applications for usage and methods of testing the materials. It explains the different types of honeycomb cores available and provides tabulated data of their properties. The author has been involved in the testing and design of honeycomb cores and sandwich panels for nearly 30 years. Honeycomb Technology reflects this by emphasizing a `hands-on' approach and discusses procedures for designing sandwich panels, explaining the necessary equations. Also included is a section on how to design honeycomb energy absorbers and one full chapter discussing honeycomb core and sandwich panel testing. Honeycomb Technology will be of interest to engineers in the aircraft, aerospace and building industries. It will also be of great use to engineering students interested in basic sandwich panel design.
About 1958, the late Professor R. E. ALSTON and Professor B. L. TURNER, both of the Department ofBotany, The University ofTexas at Austin, initiated a general systematic investigation ofthe legurne genus Baptisia. They found that flavonoid patterns, as revealed by two-dimensional paper chromatography, were valid criteria for the recognition of the Baptisia species and for the documentation of their numerous natural hybrids. Later, they showed that the flavonoid chemistry could be used for the analysis of gene flow among populations. At that time no attempt was made to even partially identify the flavonoids which were detected chromatographically. Neverthe1ess, it soon became apparent that the full value of the chemical data for systematic purposes required knowledge of the structures of the flavonoids. In 1962, one of us (T.J.M.) in collaboration with Drs. ALSTON and TURNER beg an the chemical analysis of the more than 60 flavonoids which had been chromatographi cally detected in the 16 Baptisia species. In the intervening years, a number of chemists and botanists, inc1uding Drs. K. BAETCKE, B. BREHM, M. CRANMER, D. HORNE, J. KAGAN, B. KROSCHEWSKY, J. MCCLURE, H. RÖSLER, and J. WALLACE, participated in the devel opment of techniques and procedures for the rapid identification of known flavonoids and in the structure determination of new flavonoids. In addition, the flavonoid chem istry of many plants other than Baptisia was investigated.
This is the first dedicated book to be published on computer-aided General Morphological Analysis (GMA) as a non-quantified modelling method. It presents the history and theory of GMA and describes how it is used to develop interactive, non-quantified inference models. Eleven case studies are presented out of more than 100 projects carried out since 1995, illustrating how GMA has been employed for structuring complex policy and planning issues, developing scenario and strategy laboratories, and analysing organisational and stakeholder structures. Also discussed are the concepts of “wicked problems” and “social messes”, their characteristics and treatment, and problems concerning the facilitation of morphological analysis workshops.
This book focuses on novel trends in software evolution research and its relations with other emerging disciplines. Mens and Demeyer, both authorities in the field of software evolution, do not restrict themselves to the evolution of source code but also address the evolution of other, equally important software artifacts. This book is the indispensable source for researchers and professionals looking for an introduction and comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art.
Achieving Systems Safety contains papers presented at the twentieth annual Safety-critical Systems Symposium, held in Bristol, UK, in February 2012. The Symposium is for engineers, managers and academics in the field of system safety, across all industry sectors, so the papers making up this volume offer a wide-ranging coverage of current safety topics, and a blend of academic research and industrial experience. They include both recent developments in the field and discussion of open issues that will shape future progress. The topics covered by the 20 papers in this volume include vulnerabilities in global navigation satellite systems; safety culture and community; transport safety; cyber-attacks on safety-critical systems; improving our approach to systems safety; accidents; assessment, validation and testing; safety standards and safety levels. The book will be of interest to both academics and practitioners working in the safety-critical systems arena.
This book presents the Green’s function formalism in a basic way and demonstrates its usefulness for applications to several well-known problems in classical physics which are usually solved not by this formalism but other approaches. The book bridges the gap between applications of the Green’s function formalism in quantum physics and classical physics. This book is written as an introduction for graduate students and researchers who want to become more familiar with the Green’s function formalism. In 1828 George Green has published an essay that was unfortunately sunken into oblivion shortly after its publication. It was rediscovered only after several years by the later Lord Kelvin. But since this time, using Green’s functions for solving partial differential equations in physics has become an important mathematical tool. While the conceptual and epistemological importance of these functions were essentially discovered and discussed in modern physics - especially in quantum field theory and quantum statistics - these aspects are rarely touched in classical physics. In doing it, this book provides an interesting and sometimes new point of view on several aspects and problems in classical physics, like the Kepler motion or the description of certain classical probability experiments in finite event spaces. A short outlook on quantum mechanical problems concludes this book.
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