Kategoria BISAC: Technology & Engineering >> Engineering (General)

Glass ceramics are a special group of materials in which a base glass can be crystallized under carefully controlled conditions, which in turn determine the properties of the material. These materials offer a wide range of physical and mechanical properties combining the distinctive characteristics of sintered ceramics and glasses. This book provides readers with an interest in medical ceramics with the ability to start making their own glasses and glass ceramics, together with an understanding of the various factors that control the final properties of these medical and dental materials....

In 2014, winner of "Outstanding Book Award" by The Japan Society for Fuzzy Theory and Intelligent Informatics.

Covering in detail both theoretical and practical perspectives, this book is a self-contained and systematic depiction of current fuzzy stochastic optimization that deploys the fuzzy random variable as a core mathematical tool to model the integrated fuzzy random uncertainty. It proceeds in an orderly fashion from the requisite theoretical aspects of the fuzzy random variable to fuzzy stochastic optimization models and their real-life case studies.

The volume...

Today, our cities are an embodiment of the complex, historical evolution of knowledge, desires and technology. Our planned and designed activities co-evolve with our aspirations, mediated by the existing technologies and social structures. The city represents the accretion and accumulation of successive layers of collective activity, structuring and being structured by other, increasingly distant cities, reaching now right around the globe.

This historical and structural development cannot therefore be understood or captured by any set of fixed quantitative relations. Structural...

This book is the second volume on Cooperative Robots and Sensor Networks. The primary objective of this book is to provide an up-to-date reference for cutting-edge studies and research trends related to mobile robots and wireless sensor networks, and in particular for the coupling between them.

Indeed, mobile robots and wireless sensor networks have enabled great potentials and a large space for ubiquitous and pervasive applications. Robotics and wireless sensor networks have mostly been considered as separate research fields and little work has investigated the marriage between...

Evacuating a city is a complex problem that involves issues of governance, preparedness education, warning, information sharing, population dynamics, resilience and recovery. As natural and anthropogenic threats to cities grow, it is an increasingly pressing problem for policy makers and practitioners.

The book is the result of a unique interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers in the physical and social sciences to consider how an interdisciplinary approach can help plan for large scale evacuations.It draws on perspectives from physics, mathematics, organisation theory,...

This volume describes the state-of-knowledge in the study of the relationships between mechanical loading states in tissues and common pathophysiologies related to increase in mass of adipose tissues and/or hyperglycemia which eventually lead to obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance, hyperlipidemia, metabolic inflammations, certain types of cancer and other related diseases.

There appears to be an interaction between the loading states in tissues and cells and these chronic conditions, as well as with factors such as age, gender and genetics of the individual. Bioengineering has made...

Limited availability of grid-based electricity is a major challenge faced by many developing countries, particularly the rural population. Fuel-based lighting, such as the kerosene lantern, is widespread in these areas, but it is a poor alternative, contributing to global warming and causing serious health problems. Several developing countries are therefore now encouraging the use of sustainable lighting.

Solar Lighting gives an in-depth analysis of energy-efficient light production through the use of solar-powered LED systems. The authors pay particular attention to the...

Recent advancements in the field of telecommunications, medical imaging and signal processing deal with signals that are inherently time varying, nonlinear and complex-valued. The time varying, nonlinear characteristics of these signals can be effectively analyzed using artificial neural networks. Furthermore, to efficiently preserve the physical characteristics of these complex-valued signals, it is important to develop complex-valued neural networks and derive their learning algorithms to represent these signals at every step of the learning process. This monograph comprises a collection...

This research book presents key developments, directions, and challenges concerning advanced query processing for both traditional and non-traditional data. A special emphasis is devoted to approximation and adaptivity issues as well as to the integration of heterogeneous data sources.

The book will prove useful as a reference book for senior undergraduate or graduate courses on advanced data management issues, which have a special focus on query processing and data integration. It is aimed for technologists, managers, and developers who want to know more about emerging trends...

The book analyzes a quasi-static fracture process in concrete and reinforced concrete by means of constitutive models formulated within continuum mechanics. A continuous and discontinuous modelling approach was used. Using a continuous approach, numerical analyses were performed using a finite element method and four different enhanced continuum models: isotropic elasto-plastic, isotropic damage and anisotropic smeared crack one. The models were equipped with a characteristic length of micro-structure by means of a non-local and a second-gradient theory. So they could properly describe the...

This book offers readers a comprehensive biomaterials-based approach to achieving clinically successful, functionally integrated vasculogenesis and myogenesis in the heart. Coverage is multidisciplinary, including the role of extracellular matrices in cardiac development, whole-heart tissue engineering, imaging the mechanisms and effects of biomaterial-based cardiac regeneration, and autologous bioengineered heart valves. Bringing current knowledge together into a single volume, this book provides a compendium to students and new researchers in the field and constitutes a platform to allow...

Hermann Haken (born 1927) is one of the fathers of the quantum-mechanical laser theory, formulated between 1962 and 1966, in strong competition with American researchers. Later on, he created Synergetics, the science of cooperation in multicomponent systems.

The book concentrates on the development of his scientific work during the first thirty-five years of his career.

In 1970 he and his doctoral student Robert Graham were able to show that the laser is an example of a nonlinear system far from thermal equilibrium that shows a phase-transition like behavior. Subsequently, this...