The idea for this book grew out of the conference "Motivational Psychology of Ontogenesis" held at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany, in May 1998. This conference focused on the interface of development and motivation and therefore brought together scholars from three major areas in psychology - developmental, motivational and lifespan.
This combination of fields represents the potential influence of development on motivation and the potential role motivation plays in development and its major contexts of family, work and school. Thus, contributors were...

Graphic displays such as charts, graphs, diagrams, and maps play in important role today in the design and presentation of instructional materials education. There is also a strong need in scientific, technical and administrative fields to visually present facts, laws, principles etc. The increasing use of computer-based learning environments has also become an important field where the visual presentation of information plays a central role. Despite the importance of graphical displays as a means of communication and the fact that research about learning and cognition has advanced rapidly in...

In recent years, the paradigm of video coding has shifted from that of a frame-based approach to a content-based approach, particularly with the finalization of the ISO multimedia coding standard, MPEG-4. MPEG-4 is the emerging standard for the coding of multimedia content. It defines a syntax for a set of content-based functionalities, namely, content-based interactivity, compression and universal access. However, it does not specify how the video content is to be generated. To generate the video content, video has to be segmented into video objects and tracked as they transverse across the...

I am profoundly convinced that notwithstanding the great progress made in solid-state magnetic sensors, they are as yet in their cloudless infancy, whereas there is still so much lying ahead in a world, unlimited in time and space ... Good Heavens They are a whole Universe into themselves.

So expounds the author in his preface to this second volume in the exciting new series, Handbook of Sensors and Actuators. The publication presents a balanced view of the overall progress made in the field, whilst summing up scientific achievements as the groundwork for further development.

Readers...

The demand for high quality aquacultured products and an increasing concern for resource conservation has led individuals and large corporations to invest time and money in commercial scale recirculating production systems. However, there are relatively few reports of profitable recirculating production systems in operation. There is little doubt that most fish reared in ponds, floating net pens, or raceways can be produced in commercial scale recirculating systems.

The objective of this book is to provide basic information and analytical skills for the reader so that they may make the...