springer berlin heidelberg springer berlin heidelberg jun 2001 (152 résultats)

Buch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -A rich variety of real-life physical problems which are still poorly understood are of a nonlinear nature. Examples include turbulence, granular flows, detonations and flame propagation, fracture dynamics, and a wealth of new biological and chemical phenomena which are being discovered. Particularly interesting among the manifestations of nonlinearity are coherent structures. This book contains reviews and contributions reporting on the state of the art regarding the role of coherent structures and patterns in nonlinear science.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 480 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -program,andallthesessionchairsandspeakersfortheirtimeande ort. Special thanks to Yi Mu, Laura Olsen, Rajan Shankaran, and Michael Hitchens for theirhelpwithlocalorganizationdetails. Finally,Iwouldliketothankallthe authorswhosubmittedpapersandalltheparticipantsofACISP2001. Ihope thattheprofessionalcontactsmadeatthisconference,thepresentations,and theproceedingshaveo eredyouinsightsandideasthatyoucanapplytoyour owne ortsinsecurityandprivacy. July2001 VijayVaradharajan AUSTRALASIANCONFERENCEON INFORMATIONSECURITYANDPRIVACY ACISP2001 Sponsoredby MacquarieUniversity AustralianComputerSociety General Chair: VijayVaradharajan MacquarieUniversity,Australia Program Chairs: VijayVaradharajan MacquarieUniversity,Australia YiMu MacquarieUniversity,Australia Program Committee: RossAnderson CambridgeUniversity,UK ColinBoyd QueenslandUniversityofTechnology,Australia EdDawson QueenslandUniversityofTechnology,Australia YvoDesmedt FloridaStateUniversity,USA PaulEngland Microsoft YairFrankel ColumbiaUniversity,USA AjoyGhosh UNISYS,Australia DieterGollman Microsoft JohnGordon ConceptLabs,UK KwangjoKim ICU,Korea ChuchangLiu DSTO,Australia MasahiroMambo TohokuUniversity,Japan WenboMao Hewlett-PackardLab. ,UK ChrisMitchell LondonUniversity,UK EijiOkamoto UniversityofWisconsin,USA JoePato Hewlett-PackardLab. ,USA JosefPieprzyk MacquarieUniversity,Australia BartPreneel KatholiekeUniversity,Belgium SteveRoberts WithamPtyLtd,Australia QingSihan AcademyofScience,China ReiSafavi-Naini UniversityofWollongong,Australia JenniferSeberry UniversityofWollongong,Australia YuliangZheng MonashUniversity,Australia TableofContents AFewThoughtsonE-Commerce. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 YacovYacobi NewCBC-MACForgeryAttacks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 KarlBrincat,ChrisJ. Mitchell CryptanalysisofaPublicKeyCryptosystemProposedatACISP2000. . . . 15 AmrYoussef,GuangGong ImprovedCryptanalysisoftheSelf-ShrinkingGenerat 540 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Medicine in Europe, AIME 2001, held in Cascais, Portugal in July 2001. The 31 revised full papers presented together with 30 posters and two invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 79 submissions. Among the topics addressed in their context on medical information processing are knowledge management, machine learning, data mining, decision support systems, temporal reasoning, case-based reasoning, planning and scheduling, natural language processing, computer vision, image and signal interpretation, intelligent agents, telemedicine, careflow systems, and cognitive modeling.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 488 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -The Advanced Course on Artificial Intelligence ACAI 2001 with the subtitle M ulti- Agent Systems and Their Applications , held in Prague, Czech Republic, was a joint event of ECCAI (the European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence) and AgentLink, the European Network of Excellence for Agent-Based Computing. Whereas ECCAI organizes two-week ACAI courses on different topics every second year, AgentLink s European Agent Systems Summer School (EASSS) has been an annual event since 1999. This year, both of these important events were merged together, giving weight to the fact that multi-agent systems currently represent one of the hottest topics in AI research. The name, ACAI 2001 Summer School, is intended to emphasize that this event continues the tradition of regular ECCAI activities (ACAI), as well as the EASSS summer schools of AgentLink. The Prague ACAI Summer School was proposed and initiated by both the Gerstner Laboratory, Czech Technical University, Prague (GL-CTU) and the Czech Society for Cybernetics and Informatics (CSKI), with the support of the Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Vienna (OFAI). Part of our motivation was catalyzed by experience gained in 1992 during the International Summer School Advanced Topics in Artificial Intelligence (see Springer s LNAI vol. 617) which was organized by the same Czech and Austrian bodies. One of the most important stimulating factors behind the organization of ACAI 2001 was the support provided by the European Commission to the Gerstner Laboratory within the frame of the MIRACLE Center of Excellence project (IST No.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 452 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -During the past several years, the world has entered the first phase of the Internet Revolution. Investors showed confidence and faith in the prospects of the Internet driven economy. In the US alone, some 30,000 dot com companies have sprung up to support electronic commerce with a wide variety of business models, technologies, and/or items or services to sell or even give away. Traditional businesses, so called brick and mortar, or offline, businesses, have started to respond to challenges by Internet based new competitors by augmenting their own businesses with Internet based, or online, businesses and/or filing lawsuits against them. The initial business to consumer orientation of electronic commerce is giving way to business to business commerce, with large corporations forming electronic exchanges or consortia to conduct commerce among members. Government, industry, and civic groups have started addressing social issues related to the Internet, such as taxation on electronic commerce, privacy, intellectual property rights, security, hacking, cyber crimes, digital divide, etc. Governments have started legitimizing electronic signatures and stepping up efforts to track down perpetrators of cyber crimes. The courts have started to wrestle with issues of privacy, intellectual property rights, crimes, and impediments to Internet driven economy.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 492 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -The main objective of this monograph is the study of a class of stochastic differential systems having unbounded coefficients, both in finite and in infinite dimension. We focus our attention on the regularity properties of the solutions and hence on the smoothing effect of the corresponding transition semigroups in the space of bounded and uniformly continuous functions. As an application of these results, we study the associated Kolmogorov equations, the large-time behaviour of the solutions and some stochastic optimal control problems together with the corresponding Hamilton- Jacobi-Bellman equations. In the literature there exists a large number of works (mostly in finite dimen sion) dealing with these arguments in the case of bounded Lipschitz-continuous coefficients and some of them concern the case of coefficients having linear growth. Few papers concern the case of non-Lipschitz coefficients, but they are mainly re lated to the study of the existence and the uniqueness of solutions for the stochastic system. Actually, the study of any further properties of those systems, such as their regularizing properties or their ergodicity, seems not to be developed widely enough. With these notes we try to cover this gap.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 344 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -sions, a doctoral consortium, workshops, and system demonstrations. There were a total of 79 technical submissions from 20 countries.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 340 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -Recent research has repeatedly led to connections between important rigidity questions and bounded cohomology. However, the latter has remained by and large intractable. This monograph introduces the functorial study of the continuous bounded cohomology for topological groups, with coefficients in Banach modules. The powerful techniques of this more general theory have successfully solved a number of the original problems in bounded cohomology. As applications, one obtains, in particular, rigidity results for actions on the circle, for representations on complex hyperbolic spaces and on Teichmüller spaces. A special effort has been made to provide detailed proofs or references in quite some generality.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 232 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -The 28th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming (ICALP 2001) was held July 8-12, 2001 in the Aldemar-Knossos Royal Village near Hersonissos on Crete, Greece. This volume contains all contributed papers presented at ICALP 2001, together with the invited lectures by Ahmed Bou- jani (Paris), Martin Gro e-Rhode (Berlin), Mogens Nielsen (Aarhus), and Ingo Wegener (Dortmund) and two of the keynote lectures, by Christos Papadimitriou and Boris Trakhtenbrot. For almost 30 years now, ICALP has been the main annual event of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS). The ICALP program currently consists of track A: Algorithms, Automata, Complexity, and Games and track B: Logic, Semantics, and Theory of Programming. In response to the Call for Papers, the program committee received 208 s- missions: 162 for track A, 46 for track B. The committee met on March 23/24, 2001 in Barcelona and selected 80 papers for inclusion into the scienti c program.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 1104 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -Yet another book on wavelets. There are many books on wavelets available, written for readers with different backgrounds. But the topic is becoming ever more important in mainstream signal processing, since the new JPEG2000 standard is based on wavelet techniques. Wavelet techniques are also impor tant in the MPEG-4 standard. So we thought that there might be room for yet another book on wavelets. This one is limited in scope, since it only covers the discrete wavelet trans form, which is central in modern digital signal processing. The presentation is based on the lifting technique discovered by W. Sweldens in 1994. Due to a result by I. Daubechies and W. Sweldens from 1996 this approach covers the same class of discrete wavelet transforms as the one based on two channel filter banks with perfect reconstruction. The goal of this book is to enable readers, with modest backgrounds in mathematics, signal analysis, and programming, to understand wavelet based techniques in signal analysis, and perhaps to enable them to apply such methods to real world problems. The book started as a set of lecture notes, written in Danish, for a group of teachers of signal analysis at Danish Engineering Colleges. The material has also been presented to groups of engineers working in industry, and used in mathematics courses at Aalborg University.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 256 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -The field of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has already had a significant impact on the science and engineering of fluid dynamics, ranging from a role in aircraft design to enhancing our understanding of turbulent flows. It is thus not surprising that there exist several excellent books on the subject. We do not attempt to duplicate material which is thoroughly covered in these books. In particular, our book does not describe the most recent developments in algorithms, nor does it give any instruction with respect to programming. Neither turbulence modelling nor grid generation are covered. This book is intended for a reader who seeks a deep understanding of the fundamental principles which provide the foundation for the algorithms used in CFD. As a result of this focus, the book is suitable for a first course in CFD, presumably at the graduate level. The underlying philosophy is that the theory of linear algebra and the attendant eigenanalysis of linear systems provide a mathematical framework to describe and unify most numerical methods in common use for solving the partial differential equations governing the physics of fluid flow. This approach originated with the first author during his long and distinguished career as Chief of the CFD Branch at the NASA Ames Research Center.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 268 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -It is now about 10 years since the first edition of Nerve Cells and Nervous Systems was published. There have been many important advances across the whole field of neuro science since 1990 and it was obvious that the first edition had become much less useful than when it was published. Hence this new edition. I have attempted to keep to the aims of the first edition by presenting the general principles of neuroscience in the context of experimental evidence. As with the first edition, the selection of material to include, or exclude, has been difficult and invariably reflects my personal biases. I hope that not too many readers will be disappointed with the selections. I have unashamedly retained material, and, in particular, illustrations where I think they remain of importance to an understanding of the field and to its historical development. As before, I have attempted as reasonable a coverage as possible within the confines of a book that should be easy to carry around, to handle and, I hope, to read. The book should be useful for anyone studying the nervous system at both undergraduate and immediate postgraduate levels. In particular, under graduates reading neuroscience or any course containing a neuroscience component, such as physiology, pharmacology, biomedical sciences or psychology, as well as medicine and veterinary medicine should find the book helpful.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 272 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -The study of random graphs was begun by Paul Erdos and Alfred Renyi in the 1960s and now has a comprehensive literature. A compelling element has been the threshold function, a short range in which events rapidly move from almost certainly false to almost certainly true. This book now joins the study of random graphs (and other random discrete objects) with mathematical logic. The possible threshold phenomena are studied for all statements expressible in a given language. Often there is a zero-one law, that every statement holds with probability near zero or near one. The methodologies involve probability, discrete structures and logic, with an emphasis on discrete structures.The book will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in discrete mathematics.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 184 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -The information revolution of this century was brought about by photonics based on simple and common materials, such as glasses and semiconductors. Although semiconductors will continue to be of central importance in the present century, glasses will also be of great importance in future photonic devices since they have various advantages over other materials in homogene ity, transparency, easy fabrication and excellent solvent properties. This book focuses on selected topics which are new and of fundamental importance in the applications of active glasses in photonic devices based on our research concept called 'induced structure. ' The book originates from a final report of the Hirao Active Glass Project (HAP), Exploratory Re search for Advanced Technology (ERATO), Japan Science and Technology Corporation (JST). Most of the reports in the book concern glasses under the action of very strong electromagnetic fields such as that induced by femtosec ond lasers. They include creation of induced structures in glasses, analysis of induced structure, and some functional devices using active glasses. This book is designed to provide graduate students and new researchers with an introductory review of the recent developments in the field of photonic ma terials. The reader will benefit from an overview of the latest results in the applications of active glasses in photonic devices and from a wealth of knowl edge covering most basic solid-state physics, chemical physics, and electronic engineering.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 252 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -This book presents the fmdings of a comparative study of three European metropolitan regions: Vienna, Barcelona and Stockholm. The heart of the work consists of empirical studies carefully designed and developed in order to identify the main actors and mechanisms supporting technological innovation in each of the metropolitan regions. The authors have also highlighted the similarities and differences across regions and countries, investigating how these came to be, and discussing the possible implications. The introductory as well as the concluding Chapter was written by Manfred M. Fischer who, assisted by Attila Varga, was also responsible for Chapter 2 on the Metropolitan Region of Vienna. Javier Revilla Diez contributed Chapter 3 on the Barcelona Metropolitan Region. Folke Snickars has provided Chapter 4 which examines the Metropolitan Region of Stockholm and. All authors have reviewed and commented on the whole contents so that the volume represents a collective endeavour which has been rendered as homogeneous as possible. A particular effort has been made to ensure that the study is based on a common conceptual framework.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 284 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -Alan Kirman\* and Jean-Benoit Zimmermann\*\* \*GREQAM -Universite d'Aix-Marseille, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Marseille \*\*CNRS -GREQAM, Marseille This book continues in a tradition which has developed in the annual Workshops on Economics with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, (WEHIA). The purpose of that workshop was to analyse situations in which individual agents, who might be different from each other, interact and produce behaviour on the aggregate level which does not correspond to that of the average actor. This rupture with the well established tradition of the 'representative individual' is far from having established a central position in economics. That the relaxation of that assumption and the introduction of heterogeneous individuals might change the relationship between micro behaviour and macro phenomena is clearly spelled out by Forni and Lippi (1997). The modelling of the actual interaction between these individuals has been and remains a challenge. Early analytical attempts to introduce direct and local interaction between agents such as in the pioneering work of Follmer (1974) met with little response and the recent wave of interest associated with the names of Aoki (1996), Durlauf (1997) and Blume (1993) amongst others was twenty years in the making. Yet, the influence of other disciplines such as physics and biology in which complex interactive systems and their analysis play a central role is now making itself felt in economics and the papers in this volume reflect that fact.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 360 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -associated workshops and produced their own separate proceedings.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 728 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -Geocomputation may be viewed as the application of a computational science paradigm to study a wide range of problems in geographical systems contexts.This volume presents a clear, comprehensive and thoroughly state-of-the-art overview of current research, written by leading figures in the field.It provides important insights into this new and rapidly developing field and attempts to establish the principles, and to develop techniques for solving real world problems in a wide array of application domains with a catalyst to greater understanding of what geocomputation is and what it entails.The broad coverage makes it invaluable reading for resarchers and professionals in geography, environmental and economic sciences as well as for graduate students of spatial science and computer science.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 300 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -The Conference is the premier international meeting for the presentation of original work addressing all aspects of the theory, design, fabrication, assembly, packaging, testing and application of solid-state sensors, actuators, MEMS, and microsystems.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 1932 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -Let us first describe the purpose of this book, starting with the explanation of its title. In general, scheduling problems can be understood very broadly as the problems of allocating resources over time to perform a set of tasks being parts of some processes, among which computational and manufacturing ones are most important. Tasks individually compete for resources which can be of a very different nature, e.g. manpower, money, processors (machines), energy, tools. The same is true for task characteristics, e.g. ready times, due dates, relative ur gency weights, functions describing task processing in relation to allotted re sources. Moreover, a structure of a set of tasks, reflecting precedence constraints among them, can be defined in different ways. In addition, different criteria which measure the quality of the performance of a set of tasks can be taken into account. It is easy to imagine that scheduling problems understood so generally ap pear almost everywhere in real-world situations. Of course, there are many as pects concerning approaches for modeling and solving these problems which are of general methodological importance. On the other hand, however, some classes of scheduling problems have their own specificity which should be taken into ac count. Since it is rather impossible to treat all these classes with the same atten tion in a framework of one book, some constraints must be put on the subject area considered. In the case of this book these constraints are as follows.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 500 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -New ideas on the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics, related to the theory of quantum measurement, as well as the emergence of quantum optics, quantum electronics and optical communications have shown that the statistical structure of quantum mechanics deserves special investigation. In the meantime it has become a mature subject. In this book, the author, himself a leading researcher in this field, surveys the basic principles and results of the theory, concentrating on mathematically precise formulations. Special attention is given to the measurement dynamics. The presentation is pragmatic, concentrating on the ideas and their motivation. For detailed proofs, the readers, researchers and graduate students, are referred to the extensively documented literature.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 180 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -Slightly more than 25 years ago, the first text devoted entirely to sieve meth ods made its appearance, rapidly to become a standard source and reference in the subject. The book of H. Halberstam and H.-E. Richert had actually been conceived in the mid-1960's. The initial stimulus had been provided by the paper of W. B. Jurkat and Richert, which determined the sifting limit for the linear sieve, using a combination of the ,A2 method of A. Selberg with combinatorial ideas which were in themselves of great importance and in terest. One of the declared objectives in writing their book was to place on record the sharpest form of what they called Selberg sieve theory available at the time. At the same time combinatorial methods were not neglected, and Halber stam and Richert included an account of the purely combinatorial method of Brun, which they believed to be worthy of further examination. Necessar ily they included only a briefer mention of the development of these ideas due (independently) to J. B. Rosser and H. Iwaniec that became generally available around 1971. These combinatorial notions have played a central part in subsequent developments, most notably in the papers of Iwaniec, and a further account may be thought to be timely. There have also been some developments in the theory of the so-called sieve with weights, and an account of these will also be included in this book.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 318 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -Credit risk is an important consideration in most financial transactions. As for any other risk, the risk taker requires compensation for the undiversifiable part of the risk taken. In bond markets, for example, riskier issues have to promise a higher yield to attract investors. But how much higher a yield Using methods from contingent claims analysis, credit risk valuation models attempt to put a price on credit risk. This monograph gives an overview of the current methods for the valu ation of credit risk and considers several applications of credit risk models in the context of derivative pricing. In particular, credit risk models are in corporated into the pricing of derivative contracts that are subject to credit risk. Credit risk can affect prices of derivatives in a variety of ways. First, financial derivatives can be subject to counterparty default risk. Second, a derivative can be written on a security which is subject to credit risk, such as a corporate bond. Third, the credit risk itself can be the underlying vari able of a derivative instrument. In this case, the instrument is called a credit derivative. Fourth, credit derivatives may themselves be exposed to counter party risk. This text addresses all of those valuation problems but focuses on counterparty risk. The book is divided into six chapters and an appendix. Chapter 1 gives a brief introduction into credit risk and motivates the use of credit risk models in contingent claims pricing.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 268 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -This volume includes revised versions of most of the presentations made at the International Conference «Understanding the Earth Sys tem: Compartments, Processes and Interactions' held on November 24-26, 1999 in Bonn. The Conference was organized by the German National Committee on Global Change Research as part of the Bonn Science Festival 1999-2000. The Bonn Science Festival (Wissen schaftsfestival Region Bonn) was organized and funded by sfg Strukturforderungsgesellschaft Bonn/Rhein-Siegl Ahrweiler mbH. The generous support for organizing the conference and printing this volume by sfg is gratefully acknowledged. Additional financial and organizational support for separate workshop sessions and publica tions have also been provided by the German Federal Ministry for Science and Research, BMBF and Germany's major research funding agency, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The editors wish to gratefully acknowledge the help, advice and especially patience of many individuals who have contributed to this volume. The contributions are intended to document the debate on crucial issues of the emerging concept of earth system science and to stimulate the necessary scientific discussion. While every effort has been made on the part of the editors to ensure consistency in termi nology, style and methods of quotation, the variety of contributors has inevitably resulted in certain discrepancies. E. EHLERS Bonn, February 2001 T. KRAFFT Contents Part I Panorama: The Earth System: Analysis from Science and the Humanities Chapter 1 Understanding the Earth System - From Global Change Research to Earth System Science . . . . . . . 3 E. EHLERS and T. KRAFFT Chapter 2 Earth System Analysis and Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 . . .Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 312 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -The glass transition is well known to glass makers or from the common ex perience of drying a used chewing gum. A liquid melt or a rubber becomes a solid glass when its temperature is lowered or a solvent is extracted without crystallization. There are also dynamic effects. The viscosity of a liquid is small at high temperatures but increases dramatically as cooling proceeds down to the glass temperature T ¿ The increase is continuous and amounts g to about fifteen orders of magnitude! The technical importance of the glass transition cannot be overestimated. A few examples will be presented in the Introduction. Most practical knowledge of the glass transition needed for glass or plastic technologies and applications is now readily available. Where then is the problem Inthe last few years, glass transition research has enormously intensified. We now have several hundred papers a year in expensive, top scientific journals. In a 1995 Science magazine ranking, the glass transition belongs to the six major physical quests, along with broken charges, physical input for low-dimensional geometry, measurement philoso phy in quantum mechanics, coherent X-ray radiation for materials research, and applications of superconductivity. On the other hand, interested people outside the glass transition community have difficulty seeing exactly what the glass transition problems are. Inaddition, even insiders split into groups over which question could be the most important for slow dynamics in cold liquids.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 444 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -From the reviews of the first edition:'. In general the articles . are well written in a style that enables one to grasp the ideas. The actual style is a readable mix of the important results, outlines of proofs and complete proofs when it does not take too long together with readable explanations of what is going on. Also very useful are the large lists of references which are important not only for their mathematical content but also because the references given also contain articles in the Soviet literature which may not be familiar or possibly accessible to readers.'New Zealand Math. Soc. Newsletter 1991'. Here . a wealth of material is displayed for us, too much to even indicate in a review. . Your reviewer was very impressed by the contents of both volumes (EMS 2 and 4), recommending them without any restriction. As far as he could judge, most presentations seem fairly complete.'Mededelingen van het Wiskundig genootshap 1992Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 348 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -The application of fracture mechanics to polymers and composites allows the quantitative description of the toughness behaviour by means of fracture mechan ics parameters and enables preventive failure analysis. In recent years this young scientific discipline has developed rapidly, and now the experimental results are looking for more applications in industrial practice. However, the practical appli cations of fracture mechanics parameters to structural-integrity assessment are severely restricted owing to their limited transferability from specimens to com ponents. Indeed, geometry-independent fracture mechanics parameters are very important for the reliable functioning of polymers and components in nearly all industrial application fields. These application fields include the polymer development, quality control, con struction and polymer-specific design of reliable components in the motor indus try, the electrical industry and the manufacture of household appliances, as well as applications in information technology and medical applications. The present status report on the deformation and fracture behaviour of polymer materials was composed on the basis of revised lectures presented at the Merse burg discussion conference entitled 'Deformation and Fracture Behaviour of Polymers' and additional single contributions. The editors and authors have tried hard to present information about the applied fracture mechanics of polymers and composites in the light of their current re search work.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 628 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -This book collects review papers on most of the topics covered by the invited lecturers at the IAHR Symposium on River, Coastal and Estuarine Morpho dynamics, held in Genova (Italy) on September 6th-10th, 1999. The above meeting was conceived and organized with the aim to emphasize the unity of the subject of morphodynamics and the role played by cross-fertilization in its recent development. The publication of this book has been possible thanks to the efforts of sev eral scientists who have accepted to act as referees and helped us reviewing the submitted papers. Let us thank Aronne Armanini, Rolf Deigaard, Gian paolo Di Silvio, Rob Ettema, David Furbish, Marcelo Garcia, Yarko Niiio, Joshua Roering, Yasuharu Shimizu, John Sleath, Marcel Stive, Ed Thornton, Marco Tubino, Huib De Vriend and Guido Zolezzi. Grateful thanks are also due to Tina d' Agostino who has done a consid erable amount of editorial work and to Maurizio Brocchini who has managed the whole process. Along with the Proceedings of the IAHR Symposium, the present vol ume represents one of the outcomes of the activities of the Italian research group 'Morfodinamica Fluviale e Costiera', coordinated by G. Seminara and cofunded by the Italian Ministry of Scientific Research and by various Italian Universities.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 228 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -The field of thermoelectrics has grown dramatically in recent years. In particular new and novel materials research has been undertaken and device applications have increased. In spite of this resurgence of interest there are very few books available that outline the basic concepts in this field. Thus it is necessary that a book be written that encompasses the basic theory and introduces some of the resent research into improved materials for solid-state cooling and power generation. Therefore the aim of this book is threefold. First, to present the basic theory of thermoelectricity. Both theoretical concepts and experimental aspects of the field of solid-state cooling and power generation are discussed. Second, to bridge the gap between theory and application. To this end, the techniques for producing good thermoelectric materials and module design issues are reviewed. Third, to present some of the research into new and novel materials that has drawn the attention of the scientific community. The book is intended as a reference to experimentalists working in the field; however, it will also prove useful to scientists corning into the field from other areas of research. It can also serve as a useful text for graduate students.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 308 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Etat : Neu. Neuware -The unique properties of diamond are responsible for its pre-eminence as a gemstone, and give it a glamour and attraction unprecedented for any other mineral. As the first member of group IV of the periodic table of elements, carbon, in its crystalline form as diamond, has also fascinated scientists for at least 300 years. Many experimental techniques have been employed in the study of diamond, and of these, optical spectroscopy has proven one of the most fruitful. The absorption line at 415 nm, characteristic of 'Cape Yellow' diamonds, was first documented by Walter in 1891. Further work on this absorption, now known as 'N3', by the Indian school under Sir C. V. Raman in the 1930s and 1940s led to a basic understanding of the system, which they observed in both absorption and luminescence. The N3 center is a structural defect in the diamond, and the absorption of light occurs by exciting electrons in this defect from one well-defined energy state to another. When the electron returns to the original energy level, luminescence is produced. Detailed studies of natural diamonds over the subsequent 60 years have discovered large numbers of absorption and emission lines, characteristic of different defects. In 1904 Sir William Crookes showed that a colorless diamond could be turned green by long exposure to radium salts.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 524 pp. Englisch.