Recent years have witnessed the development of computational geomechanics as an important branch of engineering. The use of modern computational techniques makes it possible to deal with many complex engineering problems, taking into account many of the typical properties of geotechnical materials (soil and rock), such as the coupled behaviour of pore water and solid material, nonlinear elasto-plastic behaviour, and transport processes. This book provides an introduction to these methods, presenting the basic principles of the geotechnical phenomena involved as well as the numerical models...

A detailed presentation of the physics of the various hysteresis models that are currently used to explain the magnetization reversal process, including coherent and incoherent magnetization processes, micromagnetism and its application in thin films, multilayers, nanowires, particles and bulk magnets, domain wall pinning and domain wall dynamics, and Preisach modelling. Some of the faulty concepts and interpretations that still exist in the literature are rectified. Magnetic imaging techniques are reviewed, including TEM, SEM, magnetic force microscopy, and optical microscopy. Temperature,...

Recent developments in advanced ceramics are critically evaluated in respect to their thermal shock and thermal fatigue behavior from an interdisciplinary viewpoint by leading experts. The book covers the aspects of material development, mechanical and fracture mechanical models and experimental testing methods. Special emphasis is given to the influence of a rising crack resistance on the thermal shock behavior, novel irradiation testing methods for a quantitative characterization of the thermal shock and fatigue loading as well as detailed fracture mechanical models for single and multiple...

Recent years have seen a growing interest in and activity at the interface between physics and biology, with the realization that both subjects have a great deal to learn from and to teach to one another. A particularly promising aspect of this interface concerns the area of cooperative phenomena and phase transitions. The present book addresses both the structure and motion of biological materials and the increasingly complex behaviour that arises out of interactions in large systems, giving rise to self organization, adaptation, selection and evolution: concepts of interest not only to...

Recent advances in the power of inversion methods, the accuracy of acoustic field prediction codes, and the speed of digital computers have made the full field inversion of ocean and seismic parameters on a large scale a practical possibility. These methods exploit amplitude and phase information detected on hydrophone/geophone arrays, thereby extending traditional inversion schemes based on time of flight measurements. Full field inversion methods provide environmental information by minimising the mismatch between measured and predicted acoustic fields through a global search of possible...

The main challenge to international environmental law is to strike an adequate balance between the discretion of states to undertake economically attractive activities and the need for constraint in order to protect the environment. Based on one particularly elaborate environmental regime (the regime for transboundary water pollution as it applies to the Netherlands) this book examines how international law has sought to replace discretion by constraint, and what limitations have been encountered with that endeavour. The study provides a comprehensive assessment of the main assets and lacunae...

IAU Transactions are published as a volume corresponding to each General Assembly. Volume A is produced prior to the Assembly and contains reports on astronomy, prepared by each Commission President.

Some might ask "Why Locke's theory of knowledge now?" Though appreciated for his social philosophy, Locke has been criticized for his work in the field of epistemology ever since the publication of the Essay. It is even as if Locke serves only as an example of how not to think. When people criticize Locke, they usually cite the hostile commen taries of Berkeley, Kant, Husserl, or Sellars. But, one might ask, are they not all so eager to show the excellence of their own epistemo logical views that they distort and underestimate Locke's thought? Russell aptly noted in his History of Western...

If culture is grounded in human biology, then it has an evolutionary history and rudimentary aspects of culture should be detectable in the behaviour of other modern species. In this volume, ethological investigators and biologically oriented anthropologists examine new discoveries in the transmission of behaviour in social groups and across generations and focus on the theme of the ethological roots of culture.