The diverse and often surprising new facts about planetary rings and comet environments that were reported by the interplanetary missions oflate 1970s - 1980s stimulated investigations of the so-called dusty plasma. The number of scientific papers on the subject that have been published since is quite impressive. Recently, a few surveys and special journal issues have appeared. Time has come to integrate some of the knowledge in a book. Apparently, this is the first monograph on dusty and self-gravitational plasmas. While the circle of pertinent problems is rather clearly defined, not all of...

Asymptotic methods of nonlinear mechanics developed by N. M. Krylov and N. N. Bogoliubov originated new trend in perturbation theory. They pene trated deep into various applied branches (theoretical physics, mechanics, ap plied astronomy, dynamics of space flights, and others) and laid the founda tion for lrumerous generalizations and for the creation of various modifications of thesem. E f, hods. A great number of approaches and techniques exist and many differen. t classes of mathematical objects have been considered (ordinary differential equations, partial differential equations, delay...

N.M. V AN STRAALEN** and D.A. KRIVOLUTSKY* **Department of Ecology and Ecotoxicology VrUe Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1087, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands *Institute of Evolutionary Animal Morphology and Ecology Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky Prospekt 33 117071 Moscow, Russian Federation Many industrialized and developing countries are faced with the assessment of potential risks associated with contaminated land. A variety of human activities, including municipal waste disposal, industrial emissions, military testing, and agricultural practices have left their impacts on soils in...

Bayesian decision theory is known to provide an effective framework for the practical solution of discrete and nonconvex optimization problems. This book is the first to demonstrate that this framework is also well suited for the exploitation of heuristic methods in the solution of such problems, especially those of large scale for which exact optimization approaches can be prohibitively costly. The book covers all aspects ranging from the formal presentation of the Bayesian Approach, to its extension to the Bayesian Heuristic Strategy, and its utilization within the informal, interactive...

This book contains translations of papers from the second volume of the new Russian-language journal published at the Sobolev Institute of Mathematics (Sibe rian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk) since 1994. In 1994 the journal was titled Sibirskil Zhurnal Issledovaniya Oper atsil. Since 1995 this journal has the title Diskretny'l Analiz i Issledovanie Operatsi'l (Discrete Analysis and Operations Research). The aim of this journal is to bring together research papers in different areas of discrete mathematics and computer science. The journal DiskretnYl Analiz i...

Thomas Sheehan and Richard E. Palmer The materials translated in the body of this volume date from 1927 through 1931. The Encyclopaedia Britannica Article and the Amsterdam Lectures were written by Edmund Hussed (with a short contribution by Martin Heideg ger) between September 1927 and April 1928, and Hussed's marginal notes to Sein und Zeit and Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik were made between 1927 and 1929. The appendices to this volume contain texts from both Hussed and Heidegger, and date from 1929 through 1931. As a whole these materials not only document Hussed's thinking as he...

Questions about the relationship between autonomy and authority are raised in nearly every area of moral philosophy. Although the most ob- vious of these is political philosophy (especially the philosophy of law), the issues surrounding this relationship are by no means confined to this area. Indeed, as we shall see as this work progresses, the issues raised are central to moral psychology, religion, professional ethics, medical ethics, and the nature of moral systems generally. Although the title of this work is Autonomy. Authority and Moral Responsibility. we shall be concerned with the...

Arising initially from a conference, the papers published here have been integrated into book form to provide information on human activities and the tropical rainforest in the past and present, and on the possible future of the rainforest, in a unique way. Other books have considered some, but not all, of these themes; however, none has stressed the continuity of change over time and its possible outcome for the people of the forest as well as for the forest itself.
Because of the approach taken, this book should appeal across traditional disciplinary boundaries. Indeed a prime aim has...

Cold-plasma modification of polymers and deposition of thin polymer fIlms is a branch of science characterised by an increasing popularity in the last few years for the targe number of new industrial processes which have been realised by its application. Most plasma scientists can attest this through their everyday experience: many technologists, independently of the size of their company address demands for new products in e. g. electronics, automotive components, optics, food and pharmaceutical packaging, biomedical and surgical equipments, etc. The unique common need of this variety of...

The chapters in this book are revised versions of papers initially presented at a confer ence on Universities and their cities held in Amsterdam on March 27-29 1996. There were about one hundred participants and 45 written contributions from Europe, the US, Canada and Australia. People with different disciplinary backgrounds, geographers, historians, sociologists, economists and planners among them, attended, as did a few university administrators and local government officials. The intricate relationships between universities and their cities were intensively debated from the perspective of...