It is with great pleasure that I present this fourth vol ume in the series "Advanced Applications in Pattern Recognition." It would be difficult to find two authors better versed in the design and application of parallel image processing systems, due to both their own many years of pioneering in the field and their encyclopedic knowledge of what is going on in uni versity and industrial laboratories around the world. The monograph is unique in its parallel presentation of orthogonal and hexagonal dissections, and the wealth of graphic illustration of algorithmic procedures for processing and...

The concept of using mathematical models to investigate crop growth and productivity has attracted much attention in recent years. A major reason is that modelling can allow an expert in one area to assess the impact of his ideas in the light of other advances in our understanding of crop performance. Whether or not many of the claims made for or the demands made of models can ever be satisfied, this role as a focus for quantitative definition of crop growth is an important one. One consequence is that the development and appraisal of such models requires the efforts of scientists from a wide...

This book has its origins in the 1982 Spring College held at the Interna tional Centre for Theoretical Physics, Miramare, Trieste. The primary aim is to give a broad coverage of liquids and amorphous solids, at a level suitable for graduate students and research workers in condensed-matter physics, physical chemistry, and materials science. The book is intended for experimental workers with interests in the basic theory. While the topics covered are many, it was planned to place special emphasis on both static structure and dynamics, including electronic transport. This emphasis is evident...

It is delightful but humbling to find my face at the start of these Proceedings--there are innumerable other faces which could equally weIl stand there, from among the band who have fore gathered at every gerontology conference since the subject was launched in its present form; but I deeply appreciate being there. Gerontology d. id not grow by accident. Its present standing is the fruit of careful planning, undertaken by European and American scientists back in the 1950's. In those days it was still a "fringe" science, and the conspirators had much the standing of the 1920's Interplanetary...

The art of using chemical agents for medication dates back into antiquity, although most of the earliest examples used plants, herbs, and other natural materials. The old Egyptian medical papyri, which date from before 1400 B. C., contain dozens of examples of such medicinal plants and animal extracts. In the Old Testament of the Bible, we can find references to using oil to soften the skin and sores (Isaiah 1:6), the use of tree leaves for medicine (Ezekiel 47:12) and various medical balms (Jeremiah 8:22). Not all these recipes were effective in curing the ailments for which they were used...

This book of original contributions presents investigations of psycho therapautic interaction. While the methodological strategies and the oretical orientations of these investigations are notably diverse, the utterance-by-utterance analysis of client-therapist dialogue provides a strong commonality of interest and a particularly productive perspective from which the process of psychotherapy can be illuminated. It is hoped that the contributions selected, and the problems with which they are occupied, will make evident the rich possibilities such a perspective has to offer. It should be...

Recent years have seen enormous advances in the field of protein and peptide engineering and a greater understanding in the way in which biological response modifiers function in the body. It is now possible through the use of recombinant DNA techniques, or by solid phase protein synthesis, to produce significant quantities of a wide variety of regulatory agents that are therapeutically applicable. The list of these response modifiers expands almost daily to include interferons, macrophage activation factors, neuropeptides and agents that may have potential in cardiovascular disease,...

Channeling, by its nature, involves a wide and disparate range of disciplines. Crystal preparation, material science, accelerator physics, sophisticated theoretical analysis and, of course, channeling itself all must work in concert in a research program. In spite of the gulfs separating some of these activities, researchers have drawn together over the last decade to carry out remarkable experiments in relativistic channeling and channeling radiation. Several informal workshops on high-energy channeling have been held over he years at Aarhus and Fermilab. However, with the vigorous progress...

The research of unitary concepts in solid state and molecular chemistry is of current interest for both chemist and physicist communities. It is clear that due to their relative simplicity, low dimensional materials have attracted most of the attention. Thus, many non-trivial problems were solved in chain systems, giving some insight into the behavior of real systems which would otherwise be untractable. The NATO Advanced Research Workshop on "Organic and Inorganic Low-Dimensional Crystalline Materials" was organized to review the most striking electronic properties exhibited by organic and...

This volume contains tutorial papers from the lectures and seminars presented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute on "Instabilities and Chaos in Quantum Optics," held at the "Il Ciocco" Conference Center, Castelvecchio Pascoli, Lucca, Italy, June 28-July 7, 1987. The title of the volume is designated Instabilities and Chaos in Quantum Optics II, because of the nearly coincident publication of a collection of articles on research in this field edited by F.T. Arecchi and R.G. Harrison Instabilities and Chaos in Quantum Optics, (Springer, Berlin, 1987) 1. That volume provides more detailed...